Fic: Daily gRind 2/3 (Lois, Dee, Gwen, Andy PG-13)
Title: Daily gRind 2/3
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.
Part One
'Arcades' was misleading. There wasn't one single game anywhere, just tonnes of shops selling clothes and books and hairbands and crockery. Bertie bopped his head and snapped his fingers as he left the last cheese shop he could find and figured he was going to have a fantastic time, all of hims everywhere. Mmmmm. Cheese.
A car sat at a light, windows rolled down, stereo blaring, and Bertie stopped to do a little shuffle on the corner as he sang along. Good thing he memorised Earth's catalogue of songs--there were a lot of them and it was impossible to tell what you would hear. But he knew this one; he'd heard it three times already:
'TiK ToK, on the clock, but the party don't stop no--' Bertie hummed along and waved his hands for the last part: 'Woah-oh oh oh! Woah-oh oh oh!'
The girls in the car glanced over at him, and then whistled and waved as they pulled through traffic, and Bertie was sad to hear the music drop away. That was his favorite kind, and the stuff they'd been playing at the shops he'd been round to had been boring by comparison. Now he wanted to find a place to play the video games he'd heard about. He had thumbs today; he wanted to try them out.
But Cardiff, despite having all these arcades, was not flush with the video games. No matter. He'd find something soon. This place was teeming with music and shiny buttons to press. And the girls he'd picked up in the last cheese shop were bubbling with fun in the body's blood stream.
Three young blokes with spiky hair stumbled out of a place across the street, and the sound that accompanied them through the temporarily-open door caught Bertie's ear. He watched the boys disappear into a chippie three doors down and then peered at the sign above the shop they'd left.
"Games Gallery," he said. "Yes, please."
He ignored the stalled traffic and dashed across the street and ducked into the gallery. It was dim, barely any overhead light in the face of all the glowing electronic games, each one emitting a theme song that melded with its neighbour. More importantly, it was all dance music. All dance music. His eyes almost glazed over.
Bertie trip-skipped past the rows of gun and hand waving machines, until he came to the ones with the platforms and the blue and pink squares and circles on them. A child was at the one occupied machine, and he watched him leap about on the pad, waving his arms and occasionally bending and using his hands.
Bertie stepped up to the pad of another machine, stamping the pads. But nothing happened. The machine continued to scroll words and letters. It wasn't activating the way the boy's was.
"Oi," said a young girl from the machine down the way, "You have to put two quid in."
"I don't have two quid," Bertie said, tapping at the screen. How was he going to get quid?
The girl tilted her head for a moment, then hopped from machine to machine until she got to him. She pressed two round coins in his hand. "Go for it."
Bertie slipped the coins in the machine, nodded to the girl, and watched as the machine's screen graphics burst into a hail of glitter.
'ARE YOU READY?' the speakers asked.
"Sure," he answered.
'HERE WE GO!'
***
That's what he was going to call today: the Great Cheesing. Andy left the third shop they'd visited, his hands full of cheese boxes and containers. Their mystery man had been busy all morning, moving from place to place, targeting the cheese counters, and then...sticking his fingers in as much cheese as he could.
Well, not as much as he could. He had preferences. He didn't touch the hard cheeses. He wanted things he could stick his hands into, like Camembert, mascarpone, and in one instance an open container of ricotta. They missed him here by about twenty minutes, and Andy was starting to think that they might have a chance of catching the moron, the tighter the time window got.
The boot to the panda car popped open and he dumped the containers in the trunk. He still didn't think there was anything wrong with the cheese, even after the man had stuck his fingers in it. It was probably some sick sexual fetish, not some act of terrorism. Who attacks the country via cheese?
Even if it was just him sticking his fingers in the cheese (once Gwen had explained sploshing to him, and he wondered if he might have occasion to have to explain it to his superiors when they dragged this perv in. He fervently hoped not), so he got more bacteria in there. Wasn't cheese made with bacteria?
He slammed the boot shut and glanced through the back window to the passenger seat, where Bruce the Bruce had been sleeping. Andy might have woken him to, oh, say, do his job, if he was actually pleasant to work with, and Andy wanted to see how long the man would sleep whilst Andy drove from place to place and took reports. Andy almost wished he'd have good reason to put the siren on.
But the passenger seat was empty. Andy glanced about; sometimes Bruce ducked into a newsagents for some snuff or a naughty magazine, and he was contemplating sitting in the car and waiting for him when there was a shout from the shop he'd just come out of.
Where was his partner?
Andy dashed back in the door in time to see Bruce emerge from behind the counter, licking his fingers and wiping them on his black trousers and vest. The woman Andy had dealt with earlier followed Bruce out onto the sales floor and smacked the man on the head.
"Bruce," Andy began, "what the hell--"
"He touched my balls!" the woman shouted, pointing to Bruce, who just turned on the spot to the overhead song and hopped on one foot. That wasn't normal.
Andy could feel the blush start in his cheeks. "Uhm--"
The woman must have sensed the issue, and her face turned red as she glared at him accusingly. "My mozzarella!"
Oh Jesus, okay.
"Uh," he said sheepishly. "Is it okay? Your...uhm, cheese...balls?"
The woman glared at him, and then at Bruce, who was apparently more than pleased that Thriller was playing through the store's speakers. "Is he daft?" she asked.
"I've often thought so," Andy sighed. He opened his wallet and sighed at the twenty pound notes in the billfold. They were nice while they lasted. Then he smiled at the woman. "Let me buy your contaminated cheese, and we'll just...wait. How much is it first?"
The woman pointed at the sign, and Andy blinked. Then he pulled out his charge card.
'There's no escaping the jaws of the alien this time, they're open wide, this is the end of your life, WOOOOOOO!'
***
'IN FOUR HUNDRED YARDS EXIT THE MOTORWAY ON THE LEFT,' the Tom-Tom, who Lois had decided to call Richard, after the voice selected from the list, said politely. 'EXIT THE MOTORWAY ON THE LEFT.'
Lois honked her horn at a Figaro that was trying to cut her off, and she hoped the driver would understand that she was in a vehicle that could roll over the sports car like a child's Tonka truck. The traffic was sluggish in the mid-morning, and she wondered what was going on to make it crawl like this. Richard's understanding of traffic was fairly poor, as he continued to remind her to 'EXIT ON THE LEFT. LEAVE THE MOTORWAY.'
"Yes, thank you," she said, gritting her teeth and wondering if Torchwood was allowed to flip cars off, or if that was something she shouldn't do in an official capacity. Dee never gave people the V, though sometimes she inched the SUV too close to other vehicles for their comfort, and when someone rode her too hard in the rear, she would brake suddenly. Lois had tried it once with the secondary SUV and the resulting fender-bender had instilled in her a healthy fear of offensive driving. Dee-fensive driving.
'AT THE NEXT LIGHT STAY LEFT,' the GPS said. 'USE THE ROUNDABOUT AND VEER RIGHT.'
Lois was starting to wonder if Richard knew she was in a car, or rather that the car was not allowed to fly over buildings and cut through arcades. She was reduced to guessing where it wanted her to go, taking long ways (by obeying the laws of traffic), and eventually coming closer and closer to whatever Blynken-hoarde had in mind for her.
There was no parking on the street, but Lois pulled up to the kerb and yanked out the red tag that pretty much declared that the SUV was a rolling (or parked) holy machine, and touching it would meet with face melting and the unholy wrath of the Home Office.
Once she was out of the vehicle, the GPS was easier to follow. 'GO THIRTY YARDS THEN TURN LEFT' brought her to a Games Gallery, the kind that contained all manner of video games for teenagers and the like. Lois tilted her head and was examining the sign out front when her bluetooth trilled and she switched out her headphone for the earpiece.
"I have some intel for you," Gwen said into her ear and Lois pushed into the Games Gallery. The place was dimmer than the brightness of the outside world, and perhaps that was the point.
She leant against the far wall, away from the games and watched two girls pole dance in front of a para para machine. It might have been sexy if they hadn't been thirteen or so. "Shoot," she told Gwen.
"You're probably looking for a joy rider," Gwen said cheerily. She was enjoying this way too much. well, she had a beer keg in her trousers; she probably needed to get her jollies where she could. Lois added another tick to her list titled, 'Why I should never get preggers, no matter how much it seems like a good idea at any given time'.
"A joy rider?" Lois asked. She started down a row of games, all equipped with guns attached to thick metal cords. Two young boys were shooting the blazes out of a cadre of alien-looking creatures on the screens. Her GPS said, 'GO FIFTEEN YARDS THEN TURN RIGHT.'
"Apparently the crown prince of the collective-hoarde has decided to take a holiday here and slum it a bit," Gwen said.
"Slum it," Lois repeated. "With...cheese."
"With the bacteria in cheese." Gwen sighed. "Don't ask me to explain it. I was horrible at Biology, and even then I don't think I could explain it in Earth terms."
Lois was cracker at Bio, but she was fairly sure that wasn't going to help her here.
"I believe they referenced our cheese bacteria as 'strumpy tartlets'," Gwen told her and then laughed. "Rhys had an ex like that."
Lois stared at the man doing the dancing stage machine. She covered the other ear with the headphone as she listened to Gwen and thought about strumpy cheese tartlets. "If they were already in some cheese, and then someone ate it," she paused.
"I imagine Blynken-hoarde would get to drive for awhile, until they were...passed," Gwen said. "They control their vehicles through a wave they release with chemicals.
"They won't be digested?"
"If I'm understanding this correctly, it takes more than some human stomach acids to break the outer casing of a Blynken-hoarde body--cell--thing."
'GO TWO YARDS THEN STOP.'
"So I'm looking for a person," she said. "Acting funny?"
The man on the dancing stage was about fifty or so, with graying hair and a droopy suit that more than covered his portly body. His dress shoes squeaked on the pads as he jumped, coming down on the pads expertly and then waved his arms. There was a crowd of people around him, and Lois watched the screen light up with the words 'PERFECT!' over and over again.
"I would imagine," Gwen replied. "Or in a cheese shop, or something." There was a pause. "Where are you?"
"Hope Street Games Gallery," Lois answered absently.
"Ah, so then a person?"
The man on the stage finished the song, spun, and raised a fist into the air, screaming, 'HOLLA!'
Lois sighed. "Are they dangerous?"
Gwen laughed. "Not quite. Well, sort of. Well, this one probably isn't. What with his cheese strumpets and all."
The man pressed a few buttons on the screen and did a little shuffle. "Can't we just wait for it to...pass?" Lois begged. She had a bad feeling about this. "Eventually, he'll finish with his tartlets and move on, right?"
"Do you want to have to explain to Her Majesty why she can't have her evening toastie when she watches X-Factor?" Gwen made a grunt. "Because I don't."
"Isn't the national dish of Wales the cheese toastie?" Lois asked, glancing about. "Slut toastie."
"Ha ha funny you," Gwen said. "Get a move on." The connection terminated with a chime and Lois pulled the bluetooth from her ear and pocketed it. The second headphone said, 'GO TWO YARDS AND STOP.' If she went any further, she'd be right on the platform with...
Oh dear.
"I'll just wait til he's done," she murmured, joining the small crowd around the stage. Apparently the novelty of a fifty-something man dancing in the gallery was drawing an audience.
The girl next to her snorted. "I gave him two quid for the first game an hour ago. He's still on it." When Lois's face revealed her cluelessness, she grinned. "He's been going for an hour straight with no breaks. I think he has about fifty credits stored up."
"He's fucking bats, is what he is," said another boy on Lois's other side. "For an old fuck." And then when Lois raised an eyebrow at him, he blushed. "You know, pardon my language annat."
"Right." Lois tucked the GPS in her coat pocket along with her bluetooth and approached the dancing stage. "Excuse me."
"I don't have any extra quid," the man said without looking at her.
Lois blinked. "That's not precisely--"
The man turned to smile at her and blinked. "Helloooooooo." Then he faced the screen, scrolling through the song options.
"Look," Lois said, gripping the handbar of the platform, "I know what you are, Your Majesty, and you have to come with me."
The man pressed a few buttons on the machine and barely registered her. "Naaaaaah."
Lois blinked. Naaaaaaah? What was she supposed to say to that?
"Really," she decided was the best response. "Your subjects are quite irate about your...dalliances with the...cheese," she finished. The person at the next para para machine over was watching her with interest.
"Come on then," the old man said, waving a hand. "Dance you for it."
Lois stared at the platform and glanced over at another machine, where a little boy was doing a routine to a dance version of 'What a Wonderful World'. This didn't look that difficult.
She kicked off her shoes and dug about in her pocket for some coins. "This is ridiculous."
The man waved a hand. "Party like it's 1999," he said to her and grinned when Lois slid the coins in the twin console and there was a shout of, 'CHALLENGER!'
The crowd went, as one of them might say, bats.
Lois slipped off her pumps and hoped that she wouldn't get some disease from the plastic tiles, standing here in her bare feet. She draped her coat on the machine so that she could keep it in eyesight, and then she examined the scrolling instructions on the screen. She'd seen how it worked. Hit the right places with her feet when the arrows scrolled on the screen. Up, down, left, right. She had four years of ballet. She could do this.
Then she and the man could get in the car and head back to--
'ARE YOU READY?' the screen asked, and a little title ran across the screen: 'Ska Ska No. 3'. The crowd behind her made an 'Oooooooh' noise, and Lois realised that was probably a bad sign.
And then the arrows started rolling up the screen, and Lois knew she was in trouble.
It was merciless. They flew up in pairs, in repeats, and every time she hit the right plastic pad they burst into sparkles, but she could only see the word that remained on the man's screen (PERFECT!) and the consistent one on her screen (POOR!). She tried to hit the pads at the right time, but sometimes she was early, or late and sometimes she did the opposite of the arrows on the screen. Beside her, the man added arm and feet movements that the game didn't ask for, as if this was nothing to him.
Clearly, he had an hour's head start.
ONE HUNDRED COMBOS!' said the machine, and Lois realised that her feet might catch on fire. The man next to her did a little turn and then crouched on the floor, and Lois decided that if she hadn't been gay before, she should be now. No fifty-year old man should ever try to 'drop it like it's hot'. The crowd of kids behind her whooped, and she realised that he was now officially 'one of them' and even if she managed to get him out of here, he was, in their eyes, 'the Man'.
That should have been less dismaying.
"He's kicking yer arse, Miss!" said the girl, and Lois wanted to snap back, 'I helped save you from a fate worse than death last year!' but she was too busy desperately trying to hit the pads with her bare feet.
'TWO HUNDRED COMBOS!' the screen yelled, and Lois knew it wasn't for her.
By the time the song was over she was dismally behind and the man had a score of 99.89. She had a score of 23.7. Lois wiped her forehead with her hand and grimaced. The man did another spin and bowed to the crowd, then saluted her with two fingers.
"Sorry, Miss," the man said. "Better luck next time, pip pip."
"No wait," Lois demanded, digging into her coat pockets. She slapped the fiver into the hand of the girl, who ran off to get her change. "Best two out of three, your Majesty."
The man grinned. "HOLLA!"
***
At two-thirty, Sharon Wasp sat down to a very nice piece of cheddar that she'd picked up on discount at the local shop on her way back from lunch. She did like a good piece of cheese, and the hasty handwritten sign in the shop window had caught her eye. These days, one couldn't be too careful, but she had been feeling a bit peckish, even after lunch, and so she ducked into the clean store to purchase a generous slice for her mid afternoon cup of tea.
She unfolded the wrapping as she sat at her desk. All about her the sound of computer keys lulled her into a steady breathing rhythm. Nothing like listening to fifty others doing data entry to calm the nerves. Her boss, Mister McGreeley, let them take one break in the afternoon, unscheduled, and Sharon was ahead of her workload, so she decided that she'd enjoy her cheese now, instead of waiting for three-thirty tea.
Sharon peered at the wedge of cheese to make sure that she hadn't been slighted in her frugality--there could be hidden mold or hard sharp edges, but it wasn't. Just a little misshapen, as if someone had held it through the package and squeezed. Maybe it had got crushed in shipping and was not up to the shape standards of the snooty shop.
Well, their loss was her gain. Sharon cut a piece off and popped it in her mouth. Oh, extra sharp.
At two forty-five, Sharon Wasp left her desk and headed for the elevators. On the way she filled her purse with letter openers, scissors, and a few cans of antibacterial spray. They'd do until she got to the weapons cache.
***
An hour later Lois's clothes were soaked with sweat. She was sure that she would never get the music out of her head, and she'd forever associate tiled floor with hopscotch.
She was thinking of buying the home game.
Bertie, as he told her to call him, currently had a score of 99.76, but Lois was closing in with a 78.32. It would be amusing to explain to Gwen what she had done this afternoon in order to 'Save the Cheese', and the last bit of her that was capable of separate thought tossed a silent thank you to her mother for making her take those dance lessons.
They finished another bout of Morning Glory, and Bertie was reaching for the controls again. The crowd had filtered away--apparently Lois and Bertie weren't a novelty anymore, though sometimes they came back when they heard the strains of a certain song, one known for its difficulty.
Nevertheless, in the lull of music and people paying attention, Lois leant over her platform to grab Bertie's arm.
"Bertie, you have to go home," she said. "Come with me, and--"
"In a few days," Bertie said, shrugging her hand off and scrolling through the songs. "I still have to go to a nightclub."
For a second Lois thought about what Bertie would look like Dancing Stage Supernova-ing all over the dance floor at Evolution. He...actually, he might do well. Might even pull something, or at least get some free drinks--
No wait.
"Bertie, we don't have that kind of time. Your...collective?" She struggled for the words. Bertie glanced at her but didn't correct her, so she must have been doing all right. "They're threatening to destroy all the cheese in the UK and probably on the mainland if you don't--"
"They wouldn't do that," Bertie said.
Lois leant against the handbar and crossed her arms. "I believe they called your party guests 'cheesy tart strumpets' or something."
Bertie turned to her. "Really?"
"Really," Lois replied, nodding solemnly.
"They don't even know them! They just like to party! They know how to show a microbe a good time!" Bertie stuffed his hands in his pockets. "I waited too long and now I need another two quid."
Lois grabbed her coat and stuffed her feet in her shoes. "No, we're going to do what your collective says, so that your Stilton strumpets and Tilset Tarts can continue to trip the night fantastic long after you've gone back home."
Bertie shrugged, but he didn't argue with her, just found his shoes on top of the console and slipped them on. "Don't ever become royalty, young lady," he said with a grimace. "Nothing but trouble."
Lois put one hand on his back and helped to steer him from the machines; he caressed the handlebar with one finger and heaved a lingering sigh. Oh, for god's sakes.
The girl waved at them as they walked out, and Lois saluted just like Bertie had done. She'd be back. She was three points short of making the scoreboard.
It took her two attempts to get Bertie in the car, as he kept trying to ride in the back or on the roof. Finally, she had him buckled into the five point harness, and slid into the driver's side, starting the engine
Bertie sighed and licked the window. "It tastes like melted sand."
"So, Bertie," Lois said, ignoring his sighs and turning onto the main road. "What's a crown prince doing slumming it with the ladies of the House of Edam?" These cheese jokes were becoming more and more amusing.
Bertie stopped and blinked at her. "You do know. About me."
Lois rolled her eyes. "Of course I know, your Majesty. We had a huge conversation about--"
"I thought you meant this body," Bertie said. He paused again, and before Lois could ask him what colour the sky was in his world, he said, "You're Torchwood."
Lois gripped the wheel. "That I am."
"So am I under arrest or something of that nature?" Bertie ran a finger through his saliva on the window and peered at his fingers. "Rest in peace, boys."
Lois ignored him. "I don't know how you arrest microbes, but uhm, no. Not precisely. I'm returning you to your collective."
"Just this part, right?"
"This..part....is there more of you?" Lois paused at the light and lowered her hands to her lap for a second. She could still feel her pulse in her fingers, like she could after her strenuous exercise routines with Dee.
"Oh my yes," Bertie said, and then looked shifty. "I mean, I might have, and then...no, not really, nope, just me, all confined to this body, yup."
Lois remembered her GPS and sat at the light, reaching behind her to fish the device from her coat pocket. She plugged the headphones into one ear and listened. 'GO THREE KILOMETERS AND TURN LEFT.'
Apparently, Bertie had more than one vehicle. "What have you been doing today, Bertie?"
"Party hard-y."
"Oh dear."
"At least turn on the radio--"
"Don't touch that!"
"WATCH THE ROAD."
"SHUT UP."
'GO TWO KILOMETERS AND TURN LEFT.'
'And they say I might become big as a Beatle...'
"This song is fly."
"Seriously, Bertie, where are you from?"
"Kent. And the Blynken-hoarde collective of Basil9Floatilla."
'And I got more street cred than legal, but just in case we keep a big Des Eagle.'
***
"So I have managed to find the other component," Gwen said, pushing back from her desk. Well, further than she already was. Lord, it was difficult to read from this far away. Lucky for her, Dee just looked up from her task at the worktable and waited.
"Please tell me it's a person and not a mound of yak butter," Dee said cheerfully.
"Yaks make butter?"
Dee tossed the empty bottle into the trash and broke the seal on another one. They needed to find a doctor so Dee wouldn't have to do things like this anymore. Gwen wasn't supposed to work with any chemicals or drugs in any large capacity until the sprog was ejected, so Lois and Dee got more than their share of goo and chemicals and inexplicably sticky mystery things.
Or in this case, several bottles of liquid benzylpenicillin. "Yes, they do, and be grateful you have never had it." Dee fumbled with the aerosoliser knob. "Fuck."
Gwen watched her work for a second, thinking about how they had got here, in this new place because the old one was cinders, and the person who'd done it now working under her in the most diligent manner that she never felt the need to doubt.
Speaking of diligence.
"Lois texted in," Gwen said. "Said she found the main joyrider, but he's been a little free with the love today, and himself all over, so they're trying to get him...all...back." She frowned. "That's just, ugh."
Dee shrugged. "I like Camembert," she said, "so whatever Lois has to do is okay with me."
Gwen laughed. "I think she just spent the better part of an hour playing a video game." The sprog shifted in her belly, kicking something, and she sucked in a breath. What the hell was he doing in there, Taekwondo? "We have other things to worry about."
"The other component?" Dee asked, not bothering to look at her as she stuck her hand and the aerosoliser inside a clear plastic bag and she sprayed it for a second to make sure it worked. Gwen watched her cap the bottle and pull her hand out, tossing the filled cartridge into her little black bag.
Gwen steepled her hands on her belly. It really was a convenient shelf. "Blynken-hoarde Collective Flotilla5 have sent their own emissary to prevent the return of the crown prince."
"Oooooh," Dee said, wiggling her fingers. "Assassination?"
Gwen shrugged. "Looks like. That's where you and your little bag of antibiotics come in."
Dee set about filling another aerosoliser. "Shall I just run about town spraying people in the face with Ciproxen, or do you have more for me to go on?"
Gwen waved the extra GPS. They only had one, and Lois was using it, so Gwen didn't mind that she'd 'liberated' Lois's from her car. "All in here."
"Should we tell Lois?" Dee asked, capping the last aerosoliser and dumping it in the black cloth bag beside her.
Gwen turned on the speakers that monitored the open signal from the inside of the SUV.
'He drinks a whisky drink, he drinks a vodka drink, he drinks a lager drink, he drinks a cider drink--'
"I SWEAR TO GOD BERTIE, CHANGE THE STATION OR I WILL END YOU."
Gwen turned the speakers off and snorted. "No, I think she has her hands full."
Part three coming soon.
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.
Part One
'Arcades' was misleading. There wasn't one single game anywhere, just tonnes of shops selling clothes and books and hairbands and crockery. Bertie bopped his head and snapped his fingers as he left the last cheese shop he could find and figured he was going to have a fantastic time, all of hims everywhere. Mmmmm. Cheese.
A car sat at a light, windows rolled down, stereo blaring, and Bertie stopped to do a little shuffle on the corner as he sang along. Good thing he memorised Earth's catalogue of songs--there were a lot of them and it was impossible to tell what you would hear. But he knew this one; he'd heard it three times already:
'TiK ToK, on the clock, but the party don't stop no--' Bertie hummed along and waved his hands for the last part: 'Woah-oh oh oh! Woah-oh oh oh!'
The girls in the car glanced over at him, and then whistled and waved as they pulled through traffic, and Bertie was sad to hear the music drop away. That was his favorite kind, and the stuff they'd been playing at the shops he'd been round to had been boring by comparison. Now he wanted to find a place to play the video games he'd heard about. He had thumbs today; he wanted to try them out.
But Cardiff, despite having all these arcades, was not flush with the video games. No matter. He'd find something soon. This place was teeming with music and shiny buttons to press. And the girls he'd picked up in the last cheese shop were bubbling with fun in the body's blood stream.
Three young blokes with spiky hair stumbled out of a place across the street, and the sound that accompanied them through the temporarily-open door caught Bertie's ear. He watched the boys disappear into a chippie three doors down and then peered at the sign above the shop they'd left.
"Games Gallery," he said. "Yes, please."
He ignored the stalled traffic and dashed across the street and ducked into the gallery. It was dim, barely any overhead light in the face of all the glowing electronic games, each one emitting a theme song that melded with its neighbour. More importantly, it was all dance music. All dance music. His eyes almost glazed over.
Bertie trip-skipped past the rows of gun and hand waving machines, until he came to the ones with the platforms and the blue and pink squares and circles on them. A child was at the one occupied machine, and he watched him leap about on the pad, waving his arms and occasionally bending and using his hands.
Bertie stepped up to the pad of another machine, stamping the pads. But nothing happened. The machine continued to scroll words and letters. It wasn't activating the way the boy's was.
"Oi," said a young girl from the machine down the way, "You have to put two quid in."
"I don't have two quid," Bertie said, tapping at the screen. How was he going to get quid?
The girl tilted her head for a moment, then hopped from machine to machine until she got to him. She pressed two round coins in his hand. "Go for it."
Bertie slipped the coins in the machine, nodded to the girl, and watched as the machine's screen graphics burst into a hail of glitter.
'ARE YOU READY?' the speakers asked.
"Sure," he answered.
'HERE WE GO!'
***
That's what he was going to call today: the Great Cheesing. Andy left the third shop they'd visited, his hands full of cheese boxes and containers. Their mystery man had been busy all morning, moving from place to place, targeting the cheese counters, and then...sticking his fingers in as much cheese as he could.
Well, not as much as he could. He had preferences. He didn't touch the hard cheeses. He wanted things he could stick his hands into, like Camembert, mascarpone, and in one instance an open container of ricotta. They missed him here by about twenty minutes, and Andy was starting to think that they might have a chance of catching the moron, the tighter the time window got.
The boot to the panda car popped open and he dumped the containers in the trunk. He still didn't think there was anything wrong with the cheese, even after the man had stuck his fingers in it. It was probably some sick sexual fetish, not some act of terrorism. Who attacks the country via cheese?
Even if it was just him sticking his fingers in the cheese (once Gwen had explained sploshing to him, and he wondered if he might have occasion to have to explain it to his superiors when they dragged this perv in. He fervently hoped not), so he got more bacteria in there. Wasn't cheese made with bacteria?
He slammed the boot shut and glanced through the back window to the passenger seat, where Bruce the Bruce had been sleeping. Andy might have woken him to, oh, say, do his job, if he was actually pleasant to work with, and Andy wanted to see how long the man would sleep whilst Andy drove from place to place and took reports. Andy almost wished he'd have good reason to put the siren on.
But the passenger seat was empty. Andy glanced about; sometimes Bruce ducked into a newsagents for some snuff or a naughty magazine, and he was contemplating sitting in the car and waiting for him when there was a shout from the shop he'd just come out of.
Where was his partner?
Andy dashed back in the door in time to see Bruce emerge from behind the counter, licking his fingers and wiping them on his black trousers and vest. The woman Andy had dealt with earlier followed Bruce out onto the sales floor and smacked the man on the head.
"Bruce," Andy began, "what the hell--"
"He touched my balls!" the woman shouted, pointing to Bruce, who just turned on the spot to the overhead song and hopped on one foot. That wasn't normal.
Andy could feel the blush start in his cheeks. "Uhm--"
The woman must have sensed the issue, and her face turned red as she glared at him accusingly. "My mozzarella!"
Oh Jesus, okay.
"Uh," he said sheepishly. "Is it okay? Your...uhm, cheese...balls?"
The woman glared at him, and then at Bruce, who was apparently more than pleased that Thriller was playing through the store's speakers. "Is he daft?" she asked.
"I've often thought so," Andy sighed. He opened his wallet and sighed at the twenty pound notes in the billfold. They were nice while they lasted. Then he smiled at the woman. "Let me buy your contaminated cheese, and we'll just...wait. How much is it first?"
The woman pointed at the sign, and Andy blinked. Then he pulled out his charge card.
'There's no escaping the jaws of the alien this time, they're open wide, this is the end of your life, WOOOOOOO!'
***
'IN FOUR HUNDRED YARDS EXIT THE MOTORWAY ON THE LEFT,' the Tom-Tom, who Lois had decided to call Richard, after the voice selected from the list, said politely. 'EXIT THE MOTORWAY ON THE LEFT.'
Lois honked her horn at a Figaro that was trying to cut her off, and she hoped the driver would understand that she was in a vehicle that could roll over the sports car like a child's Tonka truck. The traffic was sluggish in the mid-morning, and she wondered what was going on to make it crawl like this. Richard's understanding of traffic was fairly poor, as he continued to remind her to 'EXIT ON THE LEFT. LEAVE THE MOTORWAY.'
"Yes, thank you," she said, gritting her teeth and wondering if Torchwood was allowed to flip cars off, or if that was something she shouldn't do in an official capacity. Dee never gave people the V, though sometimes she inched the SUV too close to other vehicles for their comfort, and when someone rode her too hard in the rear, she would brake suddenly. Lois had tried it once with the secondary SUV and the resulting fender-bender had instilled in her a healthy fear of offensive driving. Dee-fensive driving.
'AT THE NEXT LIGHT STAY LEFT,' the GPS said. 'USE THE ROUNDABOUT AND VEER RIGHT.'
Lois was starting to wonder if Richard knew she was in a car, or rather that the car was not allowed to fly over buildings and cut through arcades. She was reduced to guessing where it wanted her to go, taking long ways (by obeying the laws of traffic), and eventually coming closer and closer to whatever Blynken-hoarde had in mind for her.
There was no parking on the street, but Lois pulled up to the kerb and yanked out the red tag that pretty much declared that the SUV was a rolling (or parked) holy machine, and touching it would meet with face melting and the unholy wrath of the Home Office.
Once she was out of the vehicle, the GPS was easier to follow. 'GO THIRTY YARDS THEN TURN LEFT' brought her to a Games Gallery, the kind that contained all manner of video games for teenagers and the like. Lois tilted her head and was examining the sign out front when her bluetooth trilled and she switched out her headphone for the earpiece.
"I have some intel for you," Gwen said into her ear and Lois pushed into the Games Gallery. The place was dimmer than the brightness of the outside world, and perhaps that was the point.
She leant against the far wall, away from the games and watched two girls pole dance in front of a para para machine. It might have been sexy if they hadn't been thirteen or so. "Shoot," she told Gwen.
"You're probably looking for a joy rider," Gwen said cheerily. She was enjoying this way too much. well, she had a beer keg in her trousers; she probably needed to get her jollies where she could. Lois added another tick to her list titled, 'Why I should never get preggers, no matter how much it seems like a good idea at any given time'.
"A joy rider?" Lois asked. She started down a row of games, all equipped with guns attached to thick metal cords. Two young boys were shooting the blazes out of a cadre of alien-looking creatures on the screens. Her GPS said, 'GO FIFTEEN YARDS THEN TURN RIGHT.'
"Apparently the crown prince of the collective-hoarde has decided to take a holiday here and slum it a bit," Gwen said.
"Slum it," Lois repeated. "With...cheese."
"With the bacteria in cheese." Gwen sighed. "Don't ask me to explain it. I was horrible at Biology, and even then I don't think I could explain it in Earth terms."
Lois was cracker at Bio, but she was fairly sure that wasn't going to help her here.
"I believe they referenced our cheese bacteria as 'strumpy tartlets'," Gwen told her and then laughed. "Rhys had an ex like that."
Lois stared at the man doing the dancing stage machine. She covered the other ear with the headphone as she listened to Gwen and thought about strumpy cheese tartlets. "If they were already in some cheese, and then someone ate it," she paused.
"I imagine Blynken-hoarde would get to drive for awhile, until they were...passed," Gwen said. "They control their vehicles through a wave they release with chemicals.
"They won't be digested?"
"If I'm understanding this correctly, it takes more than some human stomach acids to break the outer casing of a Blynken-hoarde body--cell--thing."
'GO TWO YARDS THEN STOP.'
"So I'm looking for a person," she said. "Acting funny?"
The man on the dancing stage was about fifty or so, with graying hair and a droopy suit that more than covered his portly body. His dress shoes squeaked on the pads as he jumped, coming down on the pads expertly and then waved his arms. There was a crowd of people around him, and Lois watched the screen light up with the words 'PERFECT!' over and over again.
"I would imagine," Gwen replied. "Or in a cheese shop, or something." There was a pause. "Where are you?"
"Hope Street Games Gallery," Lois answered absently.
"Ah, so then a person?"
The man on the stage finished the song, spun, and raised a fist into the air, screaming, 'HOLLA!'
Lois sighed. "Are they dangerous?"
Gwen laughed. "Not quite. Well, sort of. Well, this one probably isn't. What with his cheese strumpets and all."
The man pressed a few buttons on the screen and did a little shuffle. "Can't we just wait for it to...pass?" Lois begged. She had a bad feeling about this. "Eventually, he'll finish with his tartlets and move on, right?"
"Do you want to have to explain to Her Majesty why she can't have her evening toastie when she watches X-Factor?" Gwen made a grunt. "Because I don't."
"Isn't the national dish of Wales the cheese toastie?" Lois asked, glancing about. "Slut toastie."
"Ha ha funny you," Gwen said. "Get a move on." The connection terminated with a chime and Lois pulled the bluetooth from her ear and pocketed it. The second headphone said, 'GO TWO YARDS AND STOP.' If she went any further, she'd be right on the platform with...
Oh dear.
"I'll just wait til he's done," she murmured, joining the small crowd around the stage. Apparently the novelty of a fifty-something man dancing in the gallery was drawing an audience.
The girl next to her snorted. "I gave him two quid for the first game an hour ago. He's still on it." When Lois's face revealed her cluelessness, she grinned. "He's been going for an hour straight with no breaks. I think he has about fifty credits stored up."
"He's fucking bats, is what he is," said another boy on Lois's other side. "For an old fuck." And then when Lois raised an eyebrow at him, he blushed. "You know, pardon my language annat."
"Right." Lois tucked the GPS in her coat pocket along with her bluetooth and approached the dancing stage. "Excuse me."
"I don't have any extra quid," the man said without looking at her.
Lois blinked. "That's not precisely--"
The man turned to smile at her and blinked. "Helloooooooo." Then he faced the screen, scrolling through the song options.
"Look," Lois said, gripping the handbar of the platform, "I know what you are, Your Majesty, and you have to come with me."
The man pressed a few buttons on the machine and barely registered her. "Naaaaaah."
Lois blinked. Naaaaaaah? What was she supposed to say to that?
"Really," she decided was the best response. "Your subjects are quite irate about your...dalliances with the...cheese," she finished. The person at the next para para machine over was watching her with interest.
"Come on then," the old man said, waving a hand. "Dance you for it."
Lois stared at the platform and glanced over at another machine, where a little boy was doing a routine to a dance version of 'What a Wonderful World'. This didn't look that difficult.
She kicked off her shoes and dug about in her pocket for some coins. "This is ridiculous."
The man waved a hand. "Party like it's 1999," he said to her and grinned when Lois slid the coins in the twin console and there was a shout of, 'CHALLENGER!'
The crowd went, as one of them might say, bats.
Lois slipped off her pumps and hoped that she wouldn't get some disease from the plastic tiles, standing here in her bare feet. She draped her coat on the machine so that she could keep it in eyesight, and then she examined the scrolling instructions on the screen. She'd seen how it worked. Hit the right places with her feet when the arrows scrolled on the screen. Up, down, left, right. She had four years of ballet. She could do this.
Then she and the man could get in the car and head back to--
'ARE YOU READY?' the screen asked, and a little title ran across the screen: 'Ska Ska No. 3'. The crowd behind her made an 'Oooooooh' noise, and Lois realised that was probably a bad sign.
And then the arrows started rolling up the screen, and Lois knew she was in trouble.
It was merciless. They flew up in pairs, in repeats, and every time she hit the right plastic pad they burst into sparkles, but she could only see the word that remained on the man's screen (PERFECT!) and the consistent one on her screen (POOR!). She tried to hit the pads at the right time, but sometimes she was early, or late and sometimes she did the opposite of the arrows on the screen. Beside her, the man added arm and feet movements that the game didn't ask for, as if this was nothing to him.
Clearly, he had an hour's head start.
ONE HUNDRED COMBOS!' said the machine, and Lois realised that her feet might catch on fire. The man next to her did a little turn and then crouched on the floor, and Lois decided that if she hadn't been gay before, she should be now. No fifty-year old man should ever try to 'drop it like it's hot'. The crowd of kids behind her whooped, and she realised that he was now officially 'one of them' and even if she managed to get him out of here, he was, in their eyes, 'the Man'.
That should have been less dismaying.
"He's kicking yer arse, Miss!" said the girl, and Lois wanted to snap back, 'I helped save you from a fate worse than death last year!' but she was too busy desperately trying to hit the pads with her bare feet.
'TWO HUNDRED COMBOS!' the screen yelled, and Lois knew it wasn't for her.
By the time the song was over she was dismally behind and the man had a score of 99.89. She had a score of 23.7. Lois wiped her forehead with her hand and grimaced. The man did another spin and bowed to the crowd, then saluted her with two fingers.
"Sorry, Miss," the man said. "Better luck next time, pip pip."
"No wait," Lois demanded, digging into her coat pockets. She slapped the fiver into the hand of the girl, who ran off to get her change. "Best two out of three, your Majesty."
The man grinned. "HOLLA!"
***
At two-thirty, Sharon Wasp sat down to a very nice piece of cheddar that she'd picked up on discount at the local shop on her way back from lunch. She did like a good piece of cheese, and the hasty handwritten sign in the shop window had caught her eye. These days, one couldn't be too careful, but she had been feeling a bit peckish, even after lunch, and so she ducked into the clean store to purchase a generous slice for her mid afternoon cup of tea.
She unfolded the wrapping as she sat at her desk. All about her the sound of computer keys lulled her into a steady breathing rhythm. Nothing like listening to fifty others doing data entry to calm the nerves. Her boss, Mister McGreeley, let them take one break in the afternoon, unscheduled, and Sharon was ahead of her workload, so she decided that she'd enjoy her cheese now, instead of waiting for three-thirty tea.
Sharon peered at the wedge of cheese to make sure that she hadn't been slighted in her frugality--there could be hidden mold or hard sharp edges, but it wasn't. Just a little misshapen, as if someone had held it through the package and squeezed. Maybe it had got crushed in shipping and was not up to the shape standards of the snooty shop.
Well, their loss was her gain. Sharon cut a piece off and popped it in her mouth. Oh, extra sharp.
At two forty-five, Sharon Wasp left her desk and headed for the elevators. On the way she filled her purse with letter openers, scissors, and a few cans of antibacterial spray. They'd do until she got to the weapons cache.
***
An hour later Lois's clothes were soaked with sweat. She was sure that she would never get the music out of her head, and she'd forever associate tiled floor with hopscotch.
She was thinking of buying the home game.
Bertie, as he told her to call him, currently had a score of 99.76, but Lois was closing in with a 78.32. It would be amusing to explain to Gwen what she had done this afternoon in order to 'Save the Cheese', and the last bit of her that was capable of separate thought tossed a silent thank you to her mother for making her take those dance lessons.
They finished another bout of Morning Glory, and Bertie was reaching for the controls again. The crowd had filtered away--apparently Lois and Bertie weren't a novelty anymore, though sometimes they came back when they heard the strains of a certain song, one known for its difficulty.
Nevertheless, in the lull of music and people paying attention, Lois leant over her platform to grab Bertie's arm.
"Bertie, you have to go home," she said. "Come with me, and--"
"In a few days," Bertie said, shrugging her hand off and scrolling through the songs. "I still have to go to a nightclub."
For a second Lois thought about what Bertie would look like Dancing Stage Supernova-ing all over the dance floor at Evolution. He...actually, he might do well. Might even pull something, or at least get some free drinks--
No wait.
"Bertie, we don't have that kind of time. Your...collective?" She struggled for the words. Bertie glanced at her but didn't correct her, so she must have been doing all right. "They're threatening to destroy all the cheese in the UK and probably on the mainland if you don't--"
"They wouldn't do that," Bertie said.
Lois leant against the handbar and crossed her arms. "I believe they called your party guests 'cheesy tart strumpets' or something."
Bertie turned to her. "Really?"
"Really," Lois replied, nodding solemnly.
"They don't even know them! They just like to party! They know how to show a microbe a good time!" Bertie stuffed his hands in his pockets. "I waited too long and now I need another two quid."
Lois grabbed her coat and stuffed her feet in her shoes. "No, we're going to do what your collective says, so that your Stilton strumpets and Tilset Tarts can continue to trip the night fantastic long after you've gone back home."
Bertie shrugged, but he didn't argue with her, just found his shoes on top of the console and slipped them on. "Don't ever become royalty, young lady," he said with a grimace. "Nothing but trouble."
Lois put one hand on his back and helped to steer him from the machines; he caressed the handlebar with one finger and heaved a lingering sigh. Oh, for god's sakes.
The girl waved at them as they walked out, and Lois saluted just like Bertie had done. She'd be back. She was three points short of making the scoreboard.
It took her two attempts to get Bertie in the car, as he kept trying to ride in the back or on the roof. Finally, she had him buckled into the five point harness, and slid into the driver's side, starting the engine
Bertie sighed and licked the window. "It tastes like melted sand."
"So, Bertie," Lois said, ignoring his sighs and turning onto the main road. "What's a crown prince doing slumming it with the ladies of the House of Edam?" These cheese jokes were becoming more and more amusing.
Bertie stopped and blinked at her. "You do know. About me."
Lois rolled her eyes. "Of course I know, your Majesty. We had a huge conversation about--"
"I thought you meant this body," Bertie said. He paused again, and before Lois could ask him what colour the sky was in his world, he said, "You're Torchwood."
Lois gripped the wheel. "That I am."
"So am I under arrest or something of that nature?" Bertie ran a finger through his saliva on the window and peered at his fingers. "Rest in peace, boys."
Lois ignored him. "I don't know how you arrest microbes, but uhm, no. Not precisely. I'm returning you to your collective."
"Just this part, right?"
"This..part....is there more of you?" Lois paused at the light and lowered her hands to her lap for a second. She could still feel her pulse in her fingers, like she could after her strenuous exercise routines with Dee.
"Oh my yes," Bertie said, and then looked shifty. "I mean, I might have, and then...no, not really, nope, just me, all confined to this body, yup."
Lois remembered her GPS and sat at the light, reaching behind her to fish the device from her coat pocket. She plugged the headphones into one ear and listened. 'GO THREE KILOMETERS AND TURN LEFT.'
Apparently, Bertie had more than one vehicle. "What have you been doing today, Bertie?"
"Party hard-y."
"Oh dear."
"At least turn on the radio--"
"Don't touch that!"
"WATCH THE ROAD."
"SHUT UP."
'GO TWO KILOMETERS AND TURN LEFT.'
'And they say I might become big as a Beatle...'
"This song is fly."
"Seriously, Bertie, where are you from?"
"Kent. And the Blynken-hoarde collective of Basil9Floatilla."
'And I got more street cred than legal, but just in case we keep a big Des Eagle.'
***
"So I have managed to find the other component," Gwen said, pushing back from her desk. Well, further than she already was. Lord, it was difficult to read from this far away. Lucky for her, Dee just looked up from her task at the worktable and waited.
"Please tell me it's a person and not a mound of yak butter," Dee said cheerfully.
"Yaks make butter?"
Dee tossed the empty bottle into the trash and broke the seal on another one. They needed to find a doctor so Dee wouldn't have to do things like this anymore. Gwen wasn't supposed to work with any chemicals or drugs in any large capacity until the sprog was ejected, so Lois and Dee got more than their share of goo and chemicals and inexplicably sticky mystery things.
Or in this case, several bottles of liquid benzylpenicillin. "Yes, they do, and be grateful you have never had it." Dee fumbled with the aerosoliser knob. "Fuck."
Gwen watched her work for a second, thinking about how they had got here, in this new place because the old one was cinders, and the person who'd done it now working under her in the most diligent manner that she never felt the need to doubt.
Speaking of diligence.
"Lois texted in," Gwen said. "Said she found the main joyrider, but he's been a little free with the love today, and himself all over, so they're trying to get him...all...back." She frowned. "That's just, ugh."
Dee shrugged. "I like Camembert," she said, "so whatever Lois has to do is okay with me."
Gwen laughed. "I think she just spent the better part of an hour playing a video game." The sprog shifted in her belly, kicking something, and she sucked in a breath. What the hell was he doing in there, Taekwondo? "We have other things to worry about."
"The other component?" Dee asked, not bothering to look at her as she stuck her hand and the aerosoliser inside a clear plastic bag and she sprayed it for a second to make sure it worked. Gwen watched her cap the bottle and pull her hand out, tossing the filled cartridge into her little black bag.
Gwen steepled her hands on her belly. It really was a convenient shelf. "Blynken-hoarde Collective Flotilla5 have sent their own emissary to prevent the return of the crown prince."
"Oooooh," Dee said, wiggling her fingers. "Assassination?"
Gwen shrugged. "Looks like. That's where you and your little bag of antibiotics come in."
Dee set about filling another aerosoliser. "Shall I just run about town spraying people in the face with Ciproxen, or do you have more for me to go on?"
Gwen waved the extra GPS. They only had one, and Lois was using it, so Gwen didn't mind that she'd 'liberated' Lois's from her car. "All in here."
"Should we tell Lois?" Dee asked, capping the last aerosoliser and dumping it in the black cloth bag beside her.
Gwen turned on the speakers that monitored the open signal from the inside of the SUV.
'He drinks a whisky drink, he drinks a vodka drink, he drinks a lager drink, he drinks a cider drink--'
"I SWEAR TO GOD BERTIE, CHANGE THE STATION OR I WILL END YOU."
Gwen turned the speakers off and snorted. "No, I think she has her hands full."
Part three coming soon.