Fic: Daily gRind 1/3 (Lois, Dee, Gwen, Andy PG-13)
Title: Daily gRind (1/3)
Recipient: blue_fjords
Author: amand_r
Rating: PG_13
Characters/Pairings: Lois, Gwen, Dee, Gretchen, Andy, various dudes and dudettes
Summary: Lois Habiba loves her job. Sometimes she has to say that out loud.
Beta: paragraphs, who more than earned her keep putting up with my typos and whatnot, and heddychaa, who did a little read through some of it.
Author Notes: Prequel for Torchwood 4.0, which Blue is betaing. I love you, Blue! You don't need to have read that to read this. Also, this is total effing crack, sort of. I stole so much from so many places. Notes at the very end.
Are you having a good time
With your friends and your French wine?
So now I'm gonna warn ya
That there's only so much I can owe, yeah
Are you having a good time?
--Leroy, 'Good Time'
The bell to the shop door jingled and Nigel poked his head out. They didn't get that much custom this early in the morning, and Nigel only kept it open when he came in because he figured it couldn't hurt, even though the morning hours were mostly for inventory and new deliveries.
The man in the shop looked a little ragged, but stiff. Nigel couldn't tell if there was something wrong with him, but he didn't have that drunken stagger, and he didn't look to be reaching for a weapon, so Nigel wiped his hands on his apron and stepped around the counter.
"Welcome to Wensleydale's Cheese Shop! How may I..." He drifted off when the man didn't seem to hear him, and was instead staring at the glass display cases and breathing heavily. "May I, uhm, assist you?"
The man finally turned to him, eyes lit up, hands raising in a surrender gesture. He licked his lips and grinned, showing nearly all his teeth. Nigel thought about taking a step back, but he wasn't sure if that would be rude or not.
The man wiggled his fingers. "Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeese."
***
The alarm clock was busted. That was the only explanation for being late. Lois was never late. Late was for losers and people with small children. Lois was single, freewheeling, and most importantly, employed. Employed at a job for which she was currently late. She shrugged her purse strap higher on her shoulder and all but ran the last fifty metres to the front entrance to the Hilton.
She waved to the concierge at her little desk, Beckers, Lois called her, and then cut through the back and into the employee halls where she was able to skip the rat maze of corridors, and emerged on the other side of the hotel where the conference rooms and ballrooms were. She slid her ID card on the temporary keypad that opened the box that covered the hand scanner. Palm flat on the scanner, a little beep, and then the lights on the reinforced doors flipped from red to green and Lois yanked the door handle with her free hand. Her other hand clutched a bag of pastries.
Lateness demanded the save of baked goods, her mother had once told her. It was difficult not to forgive someone when they proffered a pastry, Lois agreed.
The room, a converted ballroom that housed their central communications network, storage, and meeting table, was dim and empty. The motion sensor lights stuttered on as she crossed the room, and she blinked in the sudden brightness.
"You're late," said a voice, and Lois almost dropped the pastries.
"Jesus," she breathed, "were you sitting here in the dark?"
The voice came, disembodied, from a still-darkened corner of the room. "I think housekeeping is coming through the ceiling tiles to steal office supplies."
Lois looked up at the ceiling tiles high above them. "They rapel down on ropes and grab our pencils?" The corner was silent. Lois shook her bag. "Apple turnover," she warbled.
"Give me a minute," the voice said. "My arse is asleep."
Lois set the bag on the table and set about starting the day, albeit thirty minutes later than normal. The business of Torchwood waited for no woman.
It had been six months since the incident with the children, the death of Torchwood agent Jones, and the fall of old Torchwood. Five months since the formation of new Torchwood and the start of Lois's new career as a professional alien hunter and redemptive traitor. Four months since the creation of temporary headquarters at the Cardiff Hilton. Three months since the appropriation of the new location outside Cardiff. Two months since the start of reconstruction.
One month, Lois reflected in her little count down, since they had hired Agent Johnson. Dee. No, Agent Johnson.
No, Dee, Lois decided as the woman in question finally ambled into the lighted area of the ballroom and cracked her knuckles.
She opened the bag on the table and peered in. "Ooooh, you must feel guilty, Habiba."
Lois rubbed her upper arms and then pulled her sweater from the back of her chair. It was always cold in here. "Lois," she said, "call me Lois."
"As soon as you start calling me Dee."
"Deal," Lois answered and dug about in the supplies closet for plates and knives and forks from the hotel kitchen.
The door beeped and they both turned to watch Gwen waddle in the door, hand under her large belly, cup of Starbucks in her other hand. Lois knew she'd been drinking decaf since the beginning of the pregnancy, but ever since she'd hit eight and a half months, she'd started to up the ante.
Lois waved. "Good morning." It was a relief that Gwen was late, because then Lois didn't feel too badly.
Gwen eyed the bag as she set her coffee at the meeting table and shrugged off her coat. "There better be one for me in there."
Lois handed her a plate. "I got you three."
***
"So what this means is that we no longer have to worry about petrol for the next three years, once we move to the facility," Dee said, dissecting her Danish with a fork and knife.
Gwen finished her first Danish and reached for her second. "It's a little late to be sinking petrol tanks in the ground, Dee."
Dee smiled. "Which is why we get to use their pumps at the local garage any time we like."
Lois glanced at the fueling agreement in front of her. "We get scan tags. We can put them on all the key rings to the SUVs." Dee chewed daintily and nodded her head. Gwen licked her fingers. Ah well, she was eating for two.
"How are we doing with everything else building-wise?" Gwen asked. She seemed distracted, she always did when food was in play, but every time Lois tried to slip something past her, she caught it. Lois didn't know if Gwen was always this perceptive, or if this was a hormonal thing, or if this was a result of Gwen juggling moving and home and work, this heightened awareness, but it was something to aspire to. Or it could just be a trick, like Batman.
Pregnant Batman.
She was woolgathering, and Gwen was letting her, she realised as she watched the woman lick the side of her Danish and smile. Lois shook her head. Right.
"All the permits are in place, and the builders are finished with the garage, and the inside stripping and drywall placement. They're due to start the eyrie as soon as the weather turns, and the back buildings for storage." She slid the folder minutely to the side and reached for another one, out of the way. Her ace in the hole. "Which brings me to some issues about the rest of the construction."
Dee snorted. "Just some?"
Gwen ignored her and brushed her hand through her hair, streaking it with glaze. "Do tell."
"Tech, as in, we need one, to do...well, everything." When the others stiffened (this was an old argument already--no one was denying that they would need a tech, but Lois's vision of the tech's role in the construction was avant-garde), Lois leant forward a bit. Her book on assertive arguing said that was a good tactic when sitting down. "There's no reason we can't, no reason we shouldn't use some of this tech to build this thing." She held up her hand and started to tick things off on her fingers. "The ventilation systems of the Paz space stations use nebulisers that eliminate ninety percent of all pathogens and toxins. It's better than every HEPA filter we could get. And we have five of them in storage."
Gwen raised her eyebrows. Lois barreled on.
"It's obvious that we need more than the paltry basement the building has, and the mining equipment from the Tra system that we have in the satellite warehouse could, if we dusted it off, displace whole tunnels for us without digging or bracing. Not to mention that someone who knows what we need should be doing ventilation and wiring designs--"
"Enough," Gwen said, finishing her second Danish and waving her sticky fingers. "Obviously you have thought about this." She blinked and pulled the cooled mug of tea Lois had made for her towards her belly. Everything was towards Gwen's belly. "Tell us who you like for it."
"This one," Lois said, opening the folder finally and picking up the CV on top. "Maggie Hopley. Computer and mechanical engineer working for H.H. Finn in Penarth."
Gwen sipped her tea. "The boat people," she mused.
Lois smiled. "Boats are complicated. These boats have computer arrays that make Twun look like a pedal bike, and this person--" she waved the CV "--designs them all."
Dee wiped the corners of her mouth with her serviette. "How'd you find her?"
This was going to be the fun part. "Owen saved her from killing herself last year."
Gwen reached for her third Danish. "Oh, her." She licked a runnel of icing from the outside of the pastry. "I have to admit that a suicide attempt isn't endearing her to me as a prospective employee."
Lois stared at the surveillance photos of Maggie Hopley, slight frame, waves of blonde hair, eyes that, when she wasn't trying or thinking about it, showed every mental scar that the past two years had dealt her. It was that scar tissue that said something to Lois when she looked at the photos. It said, 'Torchwood'.
"I'll just give you the file and you can peruse it," Lois offered, closing the buff folder and resolving that this was their one. Gwen would see it.
Gwen looked to say something, but there was a beep and they all looked to the monitors that displayed the makeshift rift sensor readings. Lois wished they had more to go on, but they wouldn't have a better set-up until they hired a tech, specifically, if Lois got her way, Maggie.
Dee was already at the monitors, and she was keying in commands. "Apparently there's a series of small atmospheric disturbances that coincide with some radiation readings that started last week." She checked another monitor. "We had discounted them."
Gwen shoved the last of the Danish in her mouth and wiped her hands on a serviette, then waddled to the other workstation and settled in the tall chair. "Oh, look at that," she murmured, "I haven't seen this kind of cluster since I first started with Torchwood."
Lois stared over her shoulder and then thought better of it. She went to her desk and brought up the split screen that allowed her to spy on everyone's monitors.
Dee leaned back and crossed her arms, content to let Gwen take over. "So what is it?"
Gwen shrugged. "Could be nothing. Once it was a rain of frogs." Then she glanced at Lois. "Once, and this was before I came on board, it caused a hail of jelly babies in Llandaff."
Oh, that would be awesome. "How does this stuff not make the news?" she mused.
Gwen shrugged. "That's your job. You tell me."
She had a point. Lois was going to ask what flavour of jelly babies when Gwen peered closer at the monitor, squinting. Lois didn't want to be the one to tell her that she probably should look into reading glasses; Gwen didn't take too kindly to suggestions that she was getting older.
"Oh god, I was wrong. Blynken-hoarde." Gwen sighed. "Why does everything have to be so complicated?"
Lois tried to be surreptitious whilst typing on her keyboard.
Dee didn't bother trying to help. She just sat at the workstation. "What's Blynken-hoarde?"
Lois wondered if her search skills would beat Gwen's mouth. "They're a bacteriological empire that resides in hosts that roam space in large organic vessels," Gwen replied, tapping a few more keys. "They're impossible to deal with and for the most part they don't really bother us, but sometimes they come down and we have to appease them in some way or they threaten to wreak hell on us."
"Can't we kill them? With, I dunno, penicillin?" Dee asked.
Gwen paused. "It worries me how quick you are to resort to the final and macabre."
Dee stared at Gwen, and Lois could see her eyebrow raise even over her monitor. "You are aware of my job record, right, ma'am?"
Lois decided to pipe up before things verbally escalated. "Blynken-hoarde are responsible for the great cheese scare of 1899 and the--am I reading this right?" She blinked. "The fourteenth century black plague?"
Gwen sighed. "Mongolian hoards catapaulting bodies into Caffa. Spread sickness like wildfire across Europe."
"The Great Cheese Scare?" Dee asked. "Like sentient cheese?"
Lois smiled at her screen. "We wear the cheese. The cheese does not wear us." The others' blank stares at her reminded of just how alone in pop culture she was. They needed more people in here. Preferably ones who knew about twentieth century television.
"Anyway, they're transmitting, so we need to capture the transmission and translate it." Gwen left the workstation and retrieved her mug. "Dee, I think we have the proper equipment in the tech storage vault."
Dee stood and palmed the keys. "What am I looking for?"
"I emailed a photo of it to your Blackberry," Lois said, finishing her email and ending it with a little smiley.
"How do you do that?" Dee asked. "It's like you're psychic."
Lois tapped her skull. "I know you. And I have the file open."
"Well does the file say where it is?"
"Third chamber, fifth shelving unit." Lois waved as Dee walked backwards towards the door. The drive to the tech storage unit was about fifteen minutes, thirty in traffic. Dee would be back in an hour. Less if she drove like she always did. More if she stopped for coffee.
When Dee was gone, Lois set about organising her inbox. She had three emails from her automatic police scanning transcriber, four from a program that monitored a massive list of keywords on the BBC news wires, and one from Tesco's telling her that the office order was ready.
And three adverts from Marks and Spencer, because she'd bought a sweater there last year and they followed her like a hawk. This email was encrypted and they still found her. She should find the tech who wrote that software and hire them before they put their mad skills to a more offensive use.
Once that was sorted, she noticed Gwen still watching her from her perch at the meeting table.
"What?"
Gwen glanced at her fondly and finished her tea. "Ianto used to do that. Get there before all of us."
Lois shrugged. "I like to be first."
"He liked to know everything," Gwen replied offhand, eyes far away.
"That too."
***
"So let me get this straight," Andy said, glancing about the shop, "the man comes in, acts funny, then touches your cheese and runs out, but he didn't take anything." He raised an eyebrow and glanced at the glass bell cover over the Stilton. "Why did you call?"
"He manhandled the Camembert! And the Wensleydale!" Mister Wensleydale--Nigel--said, waving his hands threateningly.
Andy frowned. "He assaulted you, you mean, or he touched the--"
"The cheese, the cheese! Are you daft or something?"
Mister Wensleydale was obviously having a bad day. Andy did his best to look sympathetic instead of rolling his eyes at the ludicrousness of the call. "Well, was anything taken--"
"Look, that cheese was worth about fifty quid," Mister Wensleydale said impatiently, stabbing the rifled package of soft cheese with his finger. Andy watched it get squished and figured that if Wensleydale hadn't planned on selling it before, he certainly wasn't going to now. "And now that he's gone and shoved his hands in it, it's contaminated! I can't sell that!"
Andy wondered if insurance covered loss of cheese revenue from germs or something. He was still having a hard time keeping a straight face. "Right, well--"
"And how do you know he hasn't put some toxin in the cheese to spread disease?" Mister Wensleydale began, and then paused before the continued. "Oh, that rhymed."
"Right, well, I suppose we could take the cheese to the lab to be...tested...for...stuff," Anday said doubtfully. What he was really thinking of was the cylindrical 'lab' on the corner with the bin liner in it. There was no way the actual lab was going to test this; if he brought in wads of 'inappropriately touched cheese' he'd be on traffic duty for the rest of the year.
If Gwen were here, she would have pointed to the carton and said, 'Show us on the wheel where he touched the cheese,' and then they would have had a good laugh later. Then she would have dared him to eat the cheese.
He missed Gwen. His new (old) partner was Bruce, AKA 'Bruce the Bruce', a bastard from Glasgow who chewed tobacco and left his spit cup in the squad car.
"I took samples and put them in containers," Mister Wensleydale said, sliding the three small plastic containers across the countertop. They were all marked with the shop's logo and labelled with marker: Camambert, Brie, Wensleydale. Andy didn't have the heart to tell him that if they were going to actually send them to the lab, they would confiscate all of it and bag it themselves, but since he wasn't really going to do anything, it didn't matter.
"Excellent work," Andy said, eager to get back to the car before Bruce the Bruce accidentally spit into his coffee instead of the designated cup. "I'll uh, take these to the lab and we'll check them for toxins, and if there's anything I'll ring you." He picked up the stacked containers and nodded. "Thank you."
Wensleydale saluted. "Just doing my bit for Queen and country, Constable."
Andy nodded firmly. "Right-o."
"Wuzzat?" Bruce the Bruce said from the passenger's seat when Andy slid into the car and set the samples in the center console. He picked up a container and lifted the lid. "Free cheese?" he asked, then dipped a finger in and sampled the Camembert.
Andy thought to stop him, but instead he just started the car and rolled his eyes. "Yeah. Something like that."
***
Dee had been back for an hour, or rather she'd run in, handed her find to Gwen and then set out again, probably to go to the site. Lois had long surrendered absolute control over all things, at Gwen's urging, and though sometimes she still wished she had embedded tracking chips in both of them so that she would know where they were at all times, she understood that something something serenity, something something change the things she could control, blah blah alcoholics.
That didn't keep her from wondering what Gwen was doing. Lois might have asked, but she figured she'd find out soon enough, not to mention that she could just ask if she was dying of curiosity. There was just something satisfying about deducing oneself.
"Lois," Gwen said as Lois finally finished the morning busywork and reported to Gwen at her open cubicle for 'special assignment'. "Lois, Lois, Lois." She smiled. "I want you to remember right now how much you love working for Torchwood."
This was not a good sign. This was either the start of a reprimand (and Lois couldn't for the life of her think of a reason she'd be chitted now, unless it was her lateness, oh no) or the beginning of a bad assignment.
"If it's about the tardiness, I promise to try--"
"You were late?" Gwen asked, cocking her head. "You can be late?"
Lois felt her skin flush. She kneaded her fingers in front of her. "Well, sometimes my alarms just don't go off. Or maybe I sleep through them. I was thinking of setting several, or perhaps a series of volume checks--"
"Lois," Gwen said suddenly. "You can be late."
"I know, but I--"
Gwen lifted a hand. "Really. You can be late. So--" She turned then, dropping her hand and apparently the subject. "This," she said, pressing the button on her computer and adjusting the speakers, "is the Blynken-hoarde."
Lois listened intently as the speakers hissed, and then the message, a garbled mechanical voice, rambled on.
"Items located at four four seven three six nine four four for point three seven one two two--"
"And it goes on like that for ages," Gwen said, shutting off her speakers and plugging in a USB cord. "The last time they were here they sent us on a merry chase, but it was successful." She connected the cord to a small box that was wired to what looked like a GPS device. "The sad thing is that they can follow through on their threats, so we have to take them seriously."
The GPS device turned on and displayed the 'uploading' hourglass that meant, 'DO NOT DISCONNECT OR DEATH WILL OCCUR'. Gwen defied the old adage of watched pots not boiling by staring at the screen unblinkingly.
"The thing is, we never know what they want, or what we're supposed to do for them, because there are, uhm," she waved a hand, "communication issues."
"What are they threatening to do this time?" Lois asked.
Gwen didn't look at her, but stared at the GPS display and its 'DO NOT DISCONNECT ME UPON THREAT OF TERRIBLE THINGS LIKE A YEAST INFECTION'. In fact, she was staring at it a little too intently like--
"Boss, is this the part where I'm supposed to remember how much I love my job?"
Gwen did glance up then, sitting back and setting her hands on her large belly. "Yes. They're threatening to obliterate the entire nation's cheese supply." Then the corner of her mouth twitched.
It took both of them at least a full minute to regain composure. When they did, and Lois unbent, wiping moisture from the corners of her eyes, Gwen coughed into a tissue and sighed. "And sadly, you have to do their bidding."
Oh this was rich. "And sadly, I don't even eat cheese," Lois returned. When Gwen gave her a quizzical look, she shrugged. "It's binding."
"Well, then," Gwen said, unplugging the GPS device from the computer and tapping the screen. "Let's see, shall we?"
Lois sat on the edge of Gwen's desk so that she could lean over and stare at the screen. It looked like a normal GPS device to her. She had one in her car.
'IN FOUR HUNDRED YARDS TURN LEFT THEN TURN RIGHT,' the GPS said, sounding suspiciously like the voice hers was set at, a bloke named 'Richard'.
"This is for you," Gwen said brightly, handing it to her.
Lois blinked. "This is a Tom-Tom," Lois said dubiously, holding the GPS device wired to the small scanning box. The box was solid black, with no switches or holes, no screws or fasteners, only the wire that ran from one seam to her Tom-Tom.
"Well, yes, but now it's a Blynken-hoarde translator," Gwen said. "You're going to have an adventure!"
"So what you're saying is that I have to follow this scanner around South Wales?" When Gwen just looked at her expectantly, she tapped it. "And I do whatever this says to do so that we don't lose all our...cheese." When she said it, it sounded more ludicrous than she could have imagined.
Gwen waved her hand. "Thrilling, isn't it. Oh yes."
Lois stood up. "Forgive my asking, but what will Dee be doing?" It wasn't that she thought she was getting the shaft, but--
"Pouring the concrete on the special domicile and supervising the outdoor range installation," Gwen replied, lowering her head towards the papers in front of her. Then she glanced back up and raised one eyebrow. "Unless you have the expertise to handle that...?"
Oh dear. "Uh, no, that's fine."
Gwen folded her hands on the desk in front of her. "I have a call to the Queen's liaison at half-past. Would you prefer to take that?"
Lois took one step back. "No, no I just--"
Gwen smiled and picked up a small box and tossed it to her. Lois almost caught it with one hand, and then she fumbled and dropped it. It was a box of Senokot. "Just in case," Gwen chirped. "Have fun."
Lois pocketed the laxatives and turned curtly. This day was going to be horrible.
END PART ONE
Part Two
Recipient: blue_fjords
Author: amand_r
Rating: PG_13
Characters/Pairings: Lois, Gwen, Dee, Gretchen, Andy, various dudes and dudettes
Summary: Lois Habiba loves her job. Sometimes she has to say that out loud.
Beta: paragraphs, who more than earned her keep putting up with my typos and whatnot, and heddychaa, who did a little read through some of it.
Author Notes: Prequel for Torchwood 4.0, which Blue is betaing. I love you, Blue! You don't need to have read that to read this. Also, this is total effing crack, sort of. I stole so much from so many places. Notes at the very end.
Are you having a good time
With your friends and your French wine?
So now I'm gonna warn ya
That there's only so much I can owe, yeah
Are you having a good time?
--Leroy, 'Good Time'
The bell to the shop door jingled and Nigel poked his head out. They didn't get that much custom this early in the morning, and Nigel only kept it open when he came in because he figured it couldn't hurt, even though the morning hours were mostly for inventory and new deliveries.
The man in the shop looked a little ragged, but stiff. Nigel couldn't tell if there was something wrong with him, but he didn't have that drunken stagger, and he didn't look to be reaching for a weapon, so Nigel wiped his hands on his apron and stepped around the counter.
"Welcome to Wensleydale's Cheese Shop! How may I..." He drifted off when the man didn't seem to hear him, and was instead staring at the glass display cases and breathing heavily. "May I, uhm, assist you?"
The man finally turned to him, eyes lit up, hands raising in a surrender gesture. He licked his lips and grinned, showing nearly all his teeth. Nigel thought about taking a step back, but he wasn't sure if that would be rude or not.
The man wiggled his fingers. "Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeese."
***
The alarm clock was busted. That was the only explanation for being late. Lois was never late. Late was for losers and people with small children. Lois was single, freewheeling, and most importantly, employed. Employed at a job for which she was currently late. She shrugged her purse strap higher on her shoulder and all but ran the last fifty metres to the front entrance to the Hilton.
She waved to the concierge at her little desk, Beckers, Lois called her, and then cut through the back and into the employee halls where she was able to skip the rat maze of corridors, and emerged on the other side of the hotel where the conference rooms and ballrooms were. She slid her ID card on the temporary keypad that opened the box that covered the hand scanner. Palm flat on the scanner, a little beep, and then the lights on the reinforced doors flipped from red to green and Lois yanked the door handle with her free hand. Her other hand clutched a bag of pastries.
Lateness demanded the save of baked goods, her mother had once told her. It was difficult not to forgive someone when they proffered a pastry, Lois agreed.
The room, a converted ballroom that housed their central communications network, storage, and meeting table, was dim and empty. The motion sensor lights stuttered on as she crossed the room, and she blinked in the sudden brightness.
"You're late," said a voice, and Lois almost dropped the pastries.
"Jesus," she breathed, "were you sitting here in the dark?"
The voice came, disembodied, from a still-darkened corner of the room. "I think housekeeping is coming through the ceiling tiles to steal office supplies."
Lois looked up at the ceiling tiles high above them. "They rapel down on ropes and grab our pencils?" The corner was silent. Lois shook her bag. "Apple turnover," she warbled.
"Give me a minute," the voice said. "My arse is asleep."
Lois set the bag on the table and set about starting the day, albeit thirty minutes later than normal. The business of Torchwood waited for no woman.
It had been six months since the incident with the children, the death of Torchwood agent Jones, and the fall of old Torchwood. Five months since the formation of new Torchwood and the start of Lois's new career as a professional alien hunter and redemptive traitor. Four months since the creation of temporary headquarters at the Cardiff Hilton. Three months since the appropriation of the new location outside Cardiff. Two months since the start of reconstruction.
One month, Lois reflected in her little count down, since they had hired Agent Johnson. Dee. No, Agent Johnson.
No, Dee, Lois decided as the woman in question finally ambled into the lighted area of the ballroom and cracked her knuckles.
She opened the bag on the table and peered in. "Ooooh, you must feel guilty, Habiba."
Lois rubbed her upper arms and then pulled her sweater from the back of her chair. It was always cold in here. "Lois," she said, "call me Lois."
"As soon as you start calling me Dee."
"Deal," Lois answered and dug about in the supplies closet for plates and knives and forks from the hotel kitchen.
The door beeped and they both turned to watch Gwen waddle in the door, hand under her large belly, cup of Starbucks in her other hand. Lois knew she'd been drinking decaf since the beginning of the pregnancy, but ever since she'd hit eight and a half months, she'd started to up the ante.
Lois waved. "Good morning." It was a relief that Gwen was late, because then Lois didn't feel too badly.
Gwen eyed the bag as she set her coffee at the meeting table and shrugged off her coat. "There better be one for me in there."
Lois handed her a plate. "I got you three."
***
"So what this means is that we no longer have to worry about petrol for the next three years, once we move to the facility," Dee said, dissecting her Danish with a fork and knife.
Gwen finished her first Danish and reached for her second. "It's a little late to be sinking petrol tanks in the ground, Dee."
Dee smiled. "Which is why we get to use their pumps at the local garage any time we like."
Lois glanced at the fueling agreement in front of her. "We get scan tags. We can put them on all the key rings to the SUVs." Dee chewed daintily and nodded her head. Gwen licked her fingers. Ah well, she was eating for two.
"How are we doing with everything else building-wise?" Gwen asked. She seemed distracted, she always did when food was in play, but every time Lois tried to slip something past her, she caught it. Lois didn't know if Gwen was always this perceptive, or if this was a hormonal thing, or if this was a result of Gwen juggling moving and home and work, this heightened awareness, but it was something to aspire to. Or it could just be a trick, like Batman.
Pregnant Batman.
She was woolgathering, and Gwen was letting her, she realised as she watched the woman lick the side of her Danish and smile. Lois shook her head. Right.
"All the permits are in place, and the builders are finished with the garage, and the inside stripping and drywall placement. They're due to start the eyrie as soon as the weather turns, and the back buildings for storage." She slid the folder minutely to the side and reached for another one, out of the way. Her ace in the hole. "Which brings me to some issues about the rest of the construction."
Dee snorted. "Just some?"
Gwen ignored her and brushed her hand through her hair, streaking it with glaze. "Do tell."
"Tech, as in, we need one, to do...well, everything." When the others stiffened (this was an old argument already--no one was denying that they would need a tech, but Lois's vision of the tech's role in the construction was avant-garde), Lois leant forward a bit. Her book on assertive arguing said that was a good tactic when sitting down. "There's no reason we can't, no reason we shouldn't use some of this tech to build this thing." She held up her hand and started to tick things off on her fingers. "The ventilation systems of the Paz space stations use nebulisers that eliminate ninety percent of all pathogens and toxins. It's better than every HEPA filter we could get. And we have five of them in storage."
Gwen raised her eyebrows. Lois barreled on.
"It's obvious that we need more than the paltry basement the building has, and the mining equipment from the Tra system that we have in the satellite warehouse could, if we dusted it off, displace whole tunnels for us without digging or bracing. Not to mention that someone who knows what we need should be doing ventilation and wiring designs--"
"Enough," Gwen said, finishing her second Danish and waving her sticky fingers. "Obviously you have thought about this." She blinked and pulled the cooled mug of tea Lois had made for her towards her belly. Everything was towards Gwen's belly. "Tell us who you like for it."
"This one," Lois said, opening the folder finally and picking up the CV on top. "Maggie Hopley. Computer and mechanical engineer working for H.H. Finn in Penarth."
Gwen sipped her tea. "The boat people," she mused.
Lois smiled. "Boats are complicated. These boats have computer arrays that make Twun look like a pedal bike, and this person--" she waved the CV "--designs them all."
Dee wiped the corners of her mouth with her serviette. "How'd you find her?"
This was going to be the fun part. "Owen saved her from killing herself last year."
Gwen reached for her third Danish. "Oh, her." She licked a runnel of icing from the outside of the pastry. "I have to admit that a suicide attempt isn't endearing her to me as a prospective employee."
Lois stared at the surveillance photos of Maggie Hopley, slight frame, waves of blonde hair, eyes that, when she wasn't trying or thinking about it, showed every mental scar that the past two years had dealt her. It was that scar tissue that said something to Lois when she looked at the photos. It said, 'Torchwood'.
"I'll just give you the file and you can peruse it," Lois offered, closing the buff folder and resolving that this was their one. Gwen would see it.
Gwen looked to say something, but there was a beep and they all looked to the monitors that displayed the makeshift rift sensor readings. Lois wished they had more to go on, but they wouldn't have a better set-up until they hired a tech, specifically, if Lois got her way, Maggie.
Dee was already at the monitors, and she was keying in commands. "Apparently there's a series of small atmospheric disturbances that coincide with some radiation readings that started last week." She checked another monitor. "We had discounted them."
Gwen shoved the last of the Danish in her mouth and wiped her hands on a serviette, then waddled to the other workstation and settled in the tall chair. "Oh, look at that," she murmured, "I haven't seen this kind of cluster since I first started with Torchwood."
Lois stared over her shoulder and then thought better of it. She went to her desk and brought up the split screen that allowed her to spy on everyone's monitors.
Dee leaned back and crossed her arms, content to let Gwen take over. "So what is it?"
Gwen shrugged. "Could be nothing. Once it was a rain of frogs." Then she glanced at Lois. "Once, and this was before I came on board, it caused a hail of jelly babies in Llandaff."
Oh, that would be awesome. "How does this stuff not make the news?" she mused.
Gwen shrugged. "That's your job. You tell me."
She had a point. Lois was going to ask what flavour of jelly babies when Gwen peered closer at the monitor, squinting. Lois didn't want to be the one to tell her that she probably should look into reading glasses; Gwen didn't take too kindly to suggestions that she was getting older.
"Oh god, I was wrong. Blynken-hoarde." Gwen sighed. "Why does everything have to be so complicated?"
Lois tried to be surreptitious whilst typing on her keyboard.
Dee didn't bother trying to help. She just sat at the workstation. "What's Blynken-hoarde?"
Lois wondered if her search skills would beat Gwen's mouth. "They're a bacteriological empire that resides in hosts that roam space in large organic vessels," Gwen replied, tapping a few more keys. "They're impossible to deal with and for the most part they don't really bother us, but sometimes they come down and we have to appease them in some way or they threaten to wreak hell on us."
"Can't we kill them? With, I dunno, penicillin?" Dee asked.
Gwen paused. "It worries me how quick you are to resort to the final and macabre."
Dee stared at Gwen, and Lois could see her eyebrow raise even over her monitor. "You are aware of my job record, right, ma'am?"
Lois decided to pipe up before things verbally escalated. "Blynken-hoarde are responsible for the great cheese scare of 1899 and the--am I reading this right?" She blinked. "The fourteenth century black plague?"
Gwen sighed. "Mongolian hoards catapaulting bodies into Caffa. Spread sickness like wildfire across Europe."
"The Great Cheese Scare?" Dee asked. "Like sentient cheese?"
Lois smiled at her screen. "We wear the cheese. The cheese does not wear us." The others' blank stares at her reminded of just how alone in pop culture she was. They needed more people in here. Preferably ones who knew about twentieth century television.
"Anyway, they're transmitting, so we need to capture the transmission and translate it." Gwen left the workstation and retrieved her mug. "Dee, I think we have the proper equipment in the tech storage vault."
Dee stood and palmed the keys. "What am I looking for?"
"I emailed a photo of it to your Blackberry," Lois said, finishing her email and ending it with a little smiley.
"How do you do that?" Dee asked. "It's like you're psychic."
Lois tapped her skull. "I know you. And I have the file open."
"Well does the file say where it is?"
"Third chamber, fifth shelving unit." Lois waved as Dee walked backwards towards the door. The drive to the tech storage unit was about fifteen minutes, thirty in traffic. Dee would be back in an hour. Less if she drove like she always did. More if she stopped for coffee.
When Dee was gone, Lois set about organising her inbox. She had three emails from her automatic police scanning transcriber, four from a program that monitored a massive list of keywords on the BBC news wires, and one from Tesco's telling her that the office order was ready.
And three adverts from Marks and Spencer, because she'd bought a sweater there last year and they followed her like a hawk. This email was encrypted and they still found her. She should find the tech who wrote that software and hire them before they put their mad skills to a more offensive use.
Once that was sorted, she noticed Gwen still watching her from her perch at the meeting table.
"What?"
Gwen glanced at her fondly and finished her tea. "Ianto used to do that. Get there before all of us."
Lois shrugged. "I like to be first."
"He liked to know everything," Gwen replied offhand, eyes far away.
"That too."
***
"So let me get this straight," Andy said, glancing about the shop, "the man comes in, acts funny, then touches your cheese and runs out, but he didn't take anything." He raised an eyebrow and glanced at the glass bell cover over the Stilton. "Why did you call?"
"He manhandled the Camembert! And the Wensleydale!" Mister Wensleydale--Nigel--said, waving his hands threateningly.
Andy frowned. "He assaulted you, you mean, or he touched the--"
"The cheese, the cheese! Are you daft or something?"
Mister Wensleydale was obviously having a bad day. Andy did his best to look sympathetic instead of rolling his eyes at the ludicrousness of the call. "Well, was anything taken--"
"Look, that cheese was worth about fifty quid," Mister Wensleydale said impatiently, stabbing the rifled package of soft cheese with his finger. Andy watched it get squished and figured that if Wensleydale hadn't planned on selling it before, he certainly wasn't going to now. "And now that he's gone and shoved his hands in it, it's contaminated! I can't sell that!"
Andy wondered if insurance covered loss of cheese revenue from germs or something. He was still having a hard time keeping a straight face. "Right, well--"
"And how do you know he hasn't put some toxin in the cheese to spread disease?" Mister Wensleydale began, and then paused before the continued. "Oh, that rhymed."
"Right, well, I suppose we could take the cheese to the lab to be...tested...for...stuff," Anday said doubtfully. What he was really thinking of was the cylindrical 'lab' on the corner with the bin liner in it. There was no way the actual lab was going to test this; if he brought in wads of 'inappropriately touched cheese' he'd be on traffic duty for the rest of the year.
If Gwen were here, she would have pointed to the carton and said, 'Show us on the wheel where he touched the cheese,' and then they would have had a good laugh later. Then she would have dared him to eat the cheese.
He missed Gwen. His new (old) partner was Bruce, AKA 'Bruce the Bruce', a bastard from Glasgow who chewed tobacco and left his spit cup in the squad car.
"I took samples and put them in containers," Mister Wensleydale said, sliding the three small plastic containers across the countertop. They were all marked with the shop's logo and labelled with marker: Camambert, Brie, Wensleydale. Andy didn't have the heart to tell him that if they were going to actually send them to the lab, they would confiscate all of it and bag it themselves, but since he wasn't really going to do anything, it didn't matter.
"Excellent work," Andy said, eager to get back to the car before Bruce the Bruce accidentally spit into his coffee instead of the designated cup. "I'll uh, take these to the lab and we'll check them for toxins, and if there's anything I'll ring you." He picked up the stacked containers and nodded. "Thank you."
Wensleydale saluted. "Just doing my bit for Queen and country, Constable."
Andy nodded firmly. "Right-o."
"Wuzzat?" Bruce the Bruce said from the passenger's seat when Andy slid into the car and set the samples in the center console. He picked up a container and lifted the lid. "Free cheese?" he asked, then dipped a finger in and sampled the Camembert.
Andy thought to stop him, but instead he just started the car and rolled his eyes. "Yeah. Something like that."
***
Dee had been back for an hour, or rather she'd run in, handed her find to Gwen and then set out again, probably to go to the site. Lois had long surrendered absolute control over all things, at Gwen's urging, and though sometimes she still wished she had embedded tracking chips in both of them so that she would know where they were at all times, she understood that something something serenity, something something change the things she could control, blah blah alcoholics.
That didn't keep her from wondering what Gwen was doing. Lois might have asked, but she figured she'd find out soon enough, not to mention that she could just ask if she was dying of curiosity. There was just something satisfying about deducing oneself.
"Lois," Gwen said as Lois finally finished the morning busywork and reported to Gwen at her open cubicle for 'special assignment'. "Lois, Lois, Lois." She smiled. "I want you to remember right now how much you love working for Torchwood."
This was not a good sign. This was either the start of a reprimand (and Lois couldn't for the life of her think of a reason she'd be chitted now, unless it was her lateness, oh no) or the beginning of a bad assignment.
"If it's about the tardiness, I promise to try--"
"You were late?" Gwen asked, cocking her head. "You can be late?"
Lois felt her skin flush. She kneaded her fingers in front of her. "Well, sometimes my alarms just don't go off. Or maybe I sleep through them. I was thinking of setting several, or perhaps a series of volume checks--"
"Lois," Gwen said suddenly. "You can be late."
"I know, but I--"
Gwen lifted a hand. "Really. You can be late. So--" She turned then, dropping her hand and apparently the subject. "This," she said, pressing the button on her computer and adjusting the speakers, "is the Blynken-hoarde."
Lois listened intently as the speakers hissed, and then the message, a garbled mechanical voice, rambled on.
"Items located at four four seven three six nine four four for point three seven one two two--"
"And it goes on like that for ages," Gwen said, shutting off her speakers and plugging in a USB cord. "The last time they were here they sent us on a merry chase, but it was successful." She connected the cord to a small box that was wired to what looked like a GPS device. "The sad thing is that they can follow through on their threats, so we have to take them seriously."
The GPS device turned on and displayed the 'uploading' hourglass that meant, 'DO NOT DISCONNECT OR DEATH WILL OCCUR'. Gwen defied the old adage of watched pots not boiling by staring at the screen unblinkingly.
"The thing is, we never know what they want, or what we're supposed to do for them, because there are, uhm," she waved a hand, "communication issues."
"What are they threatening to do this time?" Lois asked.
Gwen didn't look at her, but stared at the GPS display and its 'DO NOT DISCONNECT ME UPON THREAT OF TERRIBLE THINGS LIKE A YEAST INFECTION'. In fact, she was staring at it a little too intently like--
"Boss, is this the part where I'm supposed to remember how much I love my job?"
Gwen did glance up then, sitting back and setting her hands on her large belly. "Yes. They're threatening to obliterate the entire nation's cheese supply." Then the corner of her mouth twitched.
It took both of them at least a full minute to regain composure. When they did, and Lois unbent, wiping moisture from the corners of her eyes, Gwen coughed into a tissue and sighed. "And sadly, you have to do their bidding."
Oh this was rich. "And sadly, I don't even eat cheese," Lois returned. When Gwen gave her a quizzical look, she shrugged. "It's binding."
"Well, then," Gwen said, unplugging the GPS device from the computer and tapping the screen. "Let's see, shall we?"
Lois sat on the edge of Gwen's desk so that she could lean over and stare at the screen. It looked like a normal GPS device to her. She had one in her car.
'IN FOUR HUNDRED YARDS TURN LEFT THEN TURN RIGHT,' the GPS said, sounding suspiciously like the voice hers was set at, a bloke named 'Richard'.
"This is for you," Gwen said brightly, handing it to her.
Lois blinked. "This is a Tom-Tom," Lois said dubiously, holding the GPS device wired to the small scanning box. The box was solid black, with no switches or holes, no screws or fasteners, only the wire that ran from one seam to her Tom-Tom.
"Well, yes, but now it's a Blynken-hoarde translator," Gwen said. "You're going to have an adventure!"
"So what you're saying is that I have to follow this scanner around South Wales?" When Gwen just looked at her expectantly, she tapped it. "And I do whatever this says to do so that we don't lose all our...cheese." When she said it, it sounded more ludicrous than she could have imagined.
Gwen waved her hand. "Thrilling, isn't it. Oh yes."
Lois stood up. "Forgive my asking, but what will Dee be doing?" It wasn't that she thought she was getting the shaft, but--
"Pouring the concrete on the special domicile and supervising the outdoor range installation," Gwen replied, lowering her head towards the papers in front of her. Then she glanced back up and raised one eyebrow. "Unless you have the expertise to handle that...?"
Oh dear. "Uh, no, that's fine."
Gwen folded her hands on the desk in front of her. "I have a call to the Queen's liaison at half-past. Would you prefer to take that?"
Lois took one step back. "No, no I just--"
Gwen smiled and picked up a small box and tossed it to her. Lois almost caught it with one hand, and then she fumbled and dropped it. It was a box of Senokot. "Just in case," Gwen chirped. "Have fun."
Lois pocketed the laxatives and turned curtly. This day was going to be horrible.
END PART ONE
Part Two