Burning Cosmos {A Torchwood Story Three} [COMPLETED]

20. Don't Talk To Him About Tintin

Outside the garden gate. Distract the guards. Past the greenhouse. Pull out the generator - with some help from Tintin. Break into the house (after ditching the shirt). Trick the heat sensors. Follow the energy readings to the top of the house and then completely freak out and knock unconscious the guard.

But now's the tricky part - talking to a dying man. And I know all too well what that's like.

"It's okay mate, I'm not gonna hurt you, I'm a - I'm a doctor."
Behind an opaque curtain, Henry John Parker points to his security feed. "You're a very violent doctor, I've been watching you!"

I pull back the curtain and come face to face with a small wrinkled man, tucked into bed in his pyjamas. Hardly a supervillain intent on releasing harm to the world.
"Henry Parker, yeah?"
"You're Torchwood, yes?" he asks in reply. "Did the American send you?"
I blink; I didn't realise he knew about us. "Yeah, he sent me. How do you know so much about us?"
He ignores my question. "They should've sent that Japanese girl, I like her."
I smile wryly. We all like her. "Yeah, well, sorry, you've got me."
"Is she on your phone thing? The earpiece?" Before I reply, he raises his voice and says, "Hello! Just to say, you've got very lovely legs. You should show them off more."

I can hear snickering in my ear. Great, an OAP is hitting on my friend through me.
"How do you know about us?" I repeat, and he smiles serenely.
"That magic girl comes by every month or so. Pretty little thing, and her eyes look like moving constellations, all different colours swirling about. You should keep her," he advises, and I'm not entirely sure if he's talking to the team or me. "She's very special; a very kind woman."
Despite myself, I smile. "Yeah, she is. She's a fool to be hanging around with me."

The old man laughs, but they quickly turn into coughs as frowns line his forehead.
I frown myself. "What's wrong with you?"
"Three heart attacks and a failed bypass. But I'm fine, because I have this."
He digs around his bed, and brings up from the duvet some kind of alien technology, something that looks exactly like a giant beating heart. But of course it's not that, no - it's the energy readings that have been throwing off our equipment.

I stare at it, and Parker says, "It's called the Pulse."
"You know what it is?"
"I named it," he says with pride. "It's keeping me alive."
I'm not too sure about that. I take off my backpack and turn on the scanning device Tosh gave me. As I near the thing, Parker retreats.
"No, you're not taking it!"
My frown goes deeper. "It could be dangerous; we've been detecting massive energy readings."
"I don't care," he retaliates in his wheezing voice. "All I know is, it works."

The scanning stops, and I pause. "Well I'm sorry, but it doesn't."
The man's non-existent eyebrows furrow. "What?"
"The energy isn't going into you. The power's just building up inside that thing. That's what we've been detecting. But it isn't actually doing anything for you."
His face hardens. "You're wrong. I can feel it." And on any other day I'd know he was 100% on about the device, but I can't help flinching.

I show him the scan results, and his old turtle mouth falls open. "I don't understand what's keeping me here."
I sit down on the chair next to the bed. When the machine beeps, I hold an oxygen mask over him. And then I find my response.
"It's hope," I tell him. "That thing, it's just hope. Look, I'm gonna take that thing and then I'm gonna come back."
Martha and Jack in my ear ask me what I'm saying, but I'm focused on the frightened man. "You and me, we're gonna face this together. I'll even bring the nice Japanese girl with the legs and the kind woman with the eyes. I'm going to help you."

Parker's expression is awed at my speech, and his eyes travel from me to the Pulse. He turns it a little in his hands... then passes it to me.
My breath would catch if I had any. Massive energy readings, nothing we've ever seen before... it's in my hands. And... it's beautiful. Reverently, I place the thing onto the bed next to me, and look back at the old man. His eyes are closed, and his face is full of pain.