Disoriented Cosmos {A Torchwood Story} [COMPLETED]

3. My Drink Tastes Weird

After I've finished my bath (gorgeous scents by the way - what flower was that, Bravene Gamma 7? Oh, where did that come from? Must be a side effect of this place), I wrap myself in a towel and peek outside to try and gain any semblance of what to do next when on the floor just outside the door I spot a pile of clean clothes folded neatly.
Checking down the dark hall that nobody else is here, I pick up the clothes and inspect them for any GPS devices or spy tags like I used to have thrown onto me. Nothing; just basic underwear, a pair of jeans a size too big that looks like they're from the sixties, and a modest pale blue top.

I close the bathroom door and change into them, transferring my pocketwatch from the chair nearby to the pocket, and get momentarily distracted by the soft cotton. So luxurious after years of the same stinky scratchy tat.

Once dressed I peek again outside the doors, and someone must have this entire place trip-wired or something because at the end of the hallway a door slides upwards and the man in the long coat appears again.
Ready for his mind-warping tricks again, I march right up to him and stick my finger in his face.
"Okay buddy, tell me what's going on! I've finished my bath, we've exchanged pleasantries, I haven't seriously injured you yet even though I have a feeling I should - I deserve to know where I am and who you are and what this all is!"

He pauses for a minute - a full minute, God, did this man go to drama school? - then says in his again charming voice, "Let's go to a pub."
I just stare at him in incredulance. "What? I've just confronted you about all this shady shit," I gesture to everything about me, "and you want a pint? What's wrong with you?!"
He smiles, his wide crocodile-toothed smile which chills me to the bone. "How long you got?"

He turns on the point of his boot and heads back to the white door at the end of the hall, and I guess I have no other choice but to follow him.
I walk behind him, trying not to get hit in the face with his period uniform coat. Geez, wearing that all the time, pretentious or what? Unless you were actually there, why wear it every breathing minute?

We reach the white door, get into the lift that it surprisingly turns into, and next thing I know we're back at Sewer Chic. I find the other two women on their computers, and the shorter Asian one glances at me and lowers her glasses to wave with another warm smile. She's a good egg. I like her. Not the other one though - her head seems way too stuck up her own ass.

"We're going out," he shouts to them, and the Suzie one asks curtly without looking away from her screen, "Have you remembered it?"
"Yes," he replies loudly, and begins to walk toward a large cog behind barred gates. I follow, confused yet on guard. What's it? And why the Hell is that giant cog moving from the ground to reveal another white door which is probably a lift?
The man swishes into the lift - what a bloody surprise - and beckons me into it. Looking back at the women and at the large metal underground, I walk forward into it. If worse comes to worse, I'd rather be out in the open where I can run.

The man and I walk and walk until we arrive at a pub. Instantly I am hit with a cacophony of noise from loud unknown music and loud unknown people talking and laughing and dancing. I even physically back away once we cross the threshold; I'm not used to this sort of noise.

He studies me reacting to the place, silent with a thoughtful look placed along his tight jaw. He puts a hand gently on my shoulder, freaking me out a little, and guides me slowly to the counter where he orders two pints of something I've never heard of. The bartender brings out two glasses of the stuff and I ask:
"Is it beer?"
My companion nods and I pick up the glass and start glugging it down thirstily. He laughs heartily as I finish and orders another one for me, and I put down the glass.
"Well, you would too if you were stuck drinking lukewarm tap water for ages! God, I used to go to pubs and get blackout drunk when I was a teen! At least, I think I did... stuff gets all blurry when you haven't lived for a while."
"I hear that," he laughs with me, and clinks his glass with my new one. At that I falter before I start drinking my second, and remember what I wanted to ask him.