Nightingale: Agent of Torchwood

Day One [6]

Nightingale and Toshiko entered the tourist center and noticed Jack holding the twitching hand.

Toshiko then ran after Carys.

"Jack?" Nightingale asked worriedly. She moved to help him, her hand grazing the other hand, causing her to jolt back, "Oh my God!"

"Gale..." Jack started as Ianto brought another jar to put the hand in.

"But that's...that's his hand! What are you doing with his hand?! Oh my God...he's missing a hand...he's handless...and you're carrying it around like a chihuahua in a handbag!"

"If you just let me explain!"

Nightingale took a frightened step back. "You told me you weren't like all the others who wanted to cage me up for their gain! Yet, you are showing off my brother's hand as if it were a museum piece!"

Owen walked in on the two. "Am I interrupting something?"

"No!""Yes!" Jack and Nightingale exclaimed simultaneously.

"You better come take a look at this," Owen led the duo into the autopsy room.

On the table sat a rat inside a glass tank.

"So I was trying to interpret the results of the bio-scan, yeah, but it was all just a mess like there are no definitive readings because everything in her body keeps changing, nothing stays constant. So as soon as you think you've got something clear, the metabolic rate, blood pressure, or whatever, it all goes wild again,"

"Because she's fighting the alien being for control over her body," Nightingale explained.

"Yeah, so anyway, I decided to do a comparative diagnostic, recreate the circumstances, and accelerate the process a little. See what's gonna happen to Carys,"

"Yeah, thanks,"

"I infected the rat with a combination of the vorax and the ceronium gas traces we found down at the crash site and the nightclub,"

"Looks fine so far," Toshiko noted.

"Once the gases start to flow around the body, the party really starts. The heart rate triples, the brain triples pressing against the side of the skull, as that keeps the lungs being to shrink, making it impossible to breathe and...the pressure increases on all the internal organs until..."

The rat went splat.

"Rat jam," Owen proclaimed.

"That's what's gonna happen to Carys?" Jack questioned.

"I'm losing," Nightingale quoted. "That's what she said to me,"

"Right now, it's a struggle between where Carys ends and the alien begins,"

"I have to think like her." Nightingale told Jack, "Put me in her place. It's the only way to find her,"

"Except you don't know what her controlling impulse is by now. Carys or the alien inside. The last thing I saw was a fight for control,"

"The overriding factor for the parasite is to have sex. It's a survival instinct. That's bound to be the strongest drive. So if you're desperate for sex cos, that's what the thing inside you needs, but you know it will kill. Where would you go?"

"I'd come round and shag you," Owen claimed.

Nightingale raised an eyebrow.

"What? It's a joke. Can't I have a joke with my teammates?"

"Right now?" Nightingale said, "No,"

"So what are we talking about?" Jack wondered, "Brothels? Lap dance clubs? Anywhere there are eager men?"

"I know what I'd do," Tosh spoke up.