The Wrong Hands (short story)
The Wrong Hands was a short story published in Consequences. It was written by Andrew Cartmel.
Publisher's summary
to be added
Plot
At the police morgue, Jack and Gwen are examining the grisly remains of a teenage boy. He has been cut clean in half, with a device that Jack assumes to be alien in origin since the wound was heat-sealed. Ianto, talking to Gwen and Jack through an earpiece, explains that the boy’s autopsy report is very similar to those of two other recent murders in Cardiff. Like the boy who had been cut in half, the other two victims were drug dealers. Gwen suggests that the killer is an alien vigilante, and Ianto suggests that a human could have bought the weapon from a group who have been selling alien technology on the black market. Before they leave the morgue, Jack takes a tissue sample from the boy.
At the Hub, Ianto analyses the tissue and confirms that the boy from the morgue was killed in the same way as two others. Gwen works out that all of these boys were drug dealers who lived on the Machen Estate.
Jack and Gwen stakeout the estate from the SUV. Gwen arrives late, after taking some personal time. When Jack presses her, she reveals she had a sexual health appointment with a GP. Jack asks if her and Rhys are planning on having kids anytime soon, and Gwen says she doesn’t plan on it while she still works at Torchwood. Jack fills Gwen in on what he’s seen so far, pointing out a group of teenagers who have been hanging around all day. He says they visited a double-decker bus parked behind the Happy Price supermarket in the early hours of the morning. The apparent leader of the group yelled at a teenager who had been sleeping on the bus – who appeared to have been guarding it overnight – and the other teenagers then deposited their rucksacks inside. Jack explains that those rucksacks are used to store drugs: customers pay in the Happy Shopper car park while their order is taken from the bus to a nearby mechanical horse for them to collect. Jack describes it as a kind of “self-service”. Jack and Gwen then exit the SUV to look for the alien heat-gun.
They cross the Happy Price car park, and Jack waves at the teenagers as they pass. They then go into a photo booth near to the mechanical horse where the drugs are stashed, so they can subtly take a closer look at the teenagers and try to spot the weapon. Once they’ve passed, Jack checks his wristwatch, which hasn’t detected any alien energy. He then instructs Gwen to get her photo taken in the booth so as not to blow their cover, while he walks around the back of the supermarket to get a closer look at the bus. Jack then returns to Gwen, saying he couldn’t see anything interesting.
Inside the supermarket, Jack and Gwen meet Bailey, the manager, who tells them that the boy who they saw in the morgue was once a well-respected member of the gang of teenagers outside. A rumour was circulating that the gang had turned on him and killed him after discovering he was selling drugs on the side and keeping the profits for himself.
Outside the shop, Gwen sees the gang harassing a mother pushing a pram, calling her “pram-face”. She intervenes, and when the gang’s leader reaches for a weapon Gwen pulls out a gun. The leader then slowly pulls out a revolver and drops it on the floor, before the teenagers slink away. Gwen looks at the baby in the pram, and for a long moment is captivated by its beauty. Gwen then tries to speak to the mother, but she dodges all of Gwen’s questions and hurries away. Jack then emerges from the estate with the alien weapon, telling Gwen he retrieved it from a ground-floor flat. Suddenly they are approached by Kenrick Jones, a social worker. He is supposed to be looking after Pam Feerce, the woman being taunted as “pram-face”, and explains that the gang have lost face since Gwen intervened on them harassing Pam. As a result, Pam is now a marked woman.
At the Hub, Ianto looks up the heat-gun on the alien weapons database. He discovers that these kinds of guns are manufactured and distributed in pairs, and that the gun Jack retrieved has yet to be fired. As such it can’t be the murder weapon, and another gun just like it is most likely still on the Machen estate. Jack and Gwen then set off to see if they can find it.
When they arrive they find a brawl has erupted in the Happy Price car park. Pam Feerce is fighting off the whole gang of teenagers, and appears to be winning. When the gang leader sees Jack pull a gun he runs away. Gwen notices him running towards Pam’s baby and tackles him to the ground. She handcuffs the boy, who swears profusely, and as she walks from him back to the fight she hears a voice saying “thank you”. When she walks over to the baby, it looks up at her and says “thank you, Gwen”.
The baby continues to talk, telling Gwen that its mother brought it through the Rift and abandoned it. The baby then looks into Gwen’s memories, making a comparison to an abandoned baby her police colleagues had once found. The baby tells her it had been left along with the heat-guns, which were intended as a kind of bribe for whoever chose to look after it. The baby says that when Pam found it, it instructed her to take only one of the guns and leave the other behind. The baby then names itself Czisch, and decides to call Gwen “mummy”, telling her she is an upgrade from its current mother. The baby instructs Gwen to pick it up and care for it, and Gwen does so without thinking.
As soon as Gwen does this, Pam collapses. Jack, who had been preparing to tackle Pam, believes it to be a trap. Pam then looks at him and weakly says “it let go of me”. She tells him that something had been controlling her mind, making her its slave, and that she would have killed herself if only she’d been able to. It suddenly dawns on Jack that she’s referring to the baby. Jack races towards Gwen, who is moving in a way she never normally would. Jack radios Ianto for backup as Gwen reaches for the second heat-gun from the pram and aims it towards the bus. She slices the bus in half, and its top deck slides off like the top layer of a cake. Pam shouts to Jack that the baby is teaching Gwen to use the gun, just like it had taught her.
Czisch then makes Gwen walk into the supermarket and gather food and baby supplies for it. Gwen puts the items in the pram, in a daze. When she gets to the door she sees Jack and Ianto, but does not remember their names. Ianto hands Jack a piece of paper, which he folds into a paper aeroplane and throws towards the baby. Instinctively, Gwen snatches it out of the air to protect her baby. When she sees that the paper has a man’s picture printed on it she stares at it, feeling that it might be important. She eventually remembers that this man’s name is Rhys, and suddenly the baby’s influence over her starts to wane. Her memories start to return, followed by her sense of identity and consciousness. She now recognises Jack and Ianto.
While the three talk, the baby resumes its control of Pam, and brings her into the supermarket. Jack, Ianto and Gwen see her walking towards the pram. Jack shouts, ordering everyone to evacuate the supermarket. Pam pulls the heat-gun from the pram and looks at it. She tells Gwen, Jack and Ianto to get outside. She says she will lose her memories and self-control in a few moments, and knows what she has to do. Gwen, not yet understanding, is dragged outside by Jack and Ianto. Pam then activates the gun’s self-destruct feature, blowing up the supermarket with herself and the baby still inside.
Characters
References
- The police morgue has "aggressive" air conditioning.
- Jack mentions the Black Dahlia and Aleister Crowley.
- Ianto makes cappuccinos, and strives to give them an “acceptable crema”.
- Jack makes a paper plane.
- Gwen uses binoculars on the stakeout.
- Gwen sees teenagers in hoodies and trainers. She expected to see more baseball caps.
- Jack calls Gwen “Cactus Woman” because she is being “prickly”
- When Gwen tells Jack she visited a doctor, Jack mistakenly believes she meant the Doctor.
- Jack asks if Gwen and Rhys are planning on having any children.
- Kenrick drives a Volkswagen Beetle, with bumper sticker that says “I’d rather be fishing”.
- Kenrick wears Doc Martens.
- An automated ride outside the Happy Price is designed to look like Thomas the Tank Engine.
- Gwen uses a photo booth.
- Gang leader has a chrome revolver, a Colt Python .357.
- Jack claims to be a vandal and a Visigoth.
Notes
to be added
Continuity
- Jack jokes that Gwen would make a good police officer, referring to her previous occupation.
