Tagged (audio story)
Tagged was the second audio story in Aliens Among Us 3.
Publisher's summary
"I know what you've done. I know what you'll do." The phrase starts appearing everywhere around Cardiff. On posters. On the internet. It's just a prank, isn't it? Only a wave of vigilante crime spreads through the city. People are taking revenge. Suddenly everyone knows what you've done. And they know what you'll do.
Plot
Cards saying "I know what you've done. I know what you'll do" have been delivered to people in the post and put online with people tagged. Serena receives one with her name on and pushes Mike, a man who date raped her, into the path of an oncoming bus.
Ng, Mr Colchester and Orr arrive at the Hub, which Yvonne has been doing up. Tyler calls Ng and tells her that one of the cards was found at a murder scene. Yvonne has one such card, which she gives to Mr Colchester to analyse, and sends Ng to talk to Tyler about the murder. They meet at a café and Tyler tells her of the victim: Mike.
Serena feels sorry about the bus driver who hit Mike but is happy that she did it. Whenever she worries about the killing, the card gives her a feeling of reassurance. Andy asks her about Mike and can tell that she hated him.
Mr Colchester's analysis shows nothing abnormal about the cards. Orr tells him and Yvonne that they can detect the card trying to push them to do something.
Although Serena left her card at the crime scene, she finds that it has returned to her purse, now saying "They'll know what you did. I know what you will do to stop that". She panics, even though she went through the CCTV. Ng arrives to see Andy and Serena gives them the CCTV and agrees to help them look.
Yvonne tells Orr to go on social media and make themself the ideal target of hate as she believes that whatever is behind the cards is hidden in the internet. Orr does so, causing them to suffer due to their empathetic powers. Mr Colchester worries for them but Yvonne insists that it is necessary.
Andy and Ng send Serena to get the footage from a camera that she had no knowledge of. When Ng leaves the police headquarters, Rhys calls her. After hanging up, Serena hits her with her car as she was sure that Ng was onto her. Ng survives due to her alien origins and Serena tells her what happened before leaving her. Serena finds that she can no longer read her card and panics.
Yvonne continues to push Orr until they make contact with the voice of the cards, which Yvonne says is known as the Meme.
A man helps Ng to her car and, due to her state, takes the wheel and takes her to the hospital. Once she realises that her appearance is shifting and her alien nature becoming apparent, she considers killing the man but instead makes him take retcon to forget her.
Serena goes to a restaurant where she meets Mr Colchester, whom the Meme told her to kill because of Orr. She hands him a card to prove his claims that he does not deserve to die and has a clear conscience, but he hears himself shooting a man who begs him not to. He falls unconscious.
Ng struggles into the Hub and collapses. Orr, too, is unconscious.
Yvonne arrives at the restaurant and tells Serena that she was not to blame for her rape and offers to cover up Mike's death. She takes the card from her and, unaffected by it, tears it up and tells Serena to leave and get on with her life. Serena runs from the restaurant, feeling free. At the Hub, Mr Colchester takes a blood sample from Yvonne and gets a full psychic signature of the Meme, planning to track it down and remove all traces of the cards. Yvonne goes to Orr's unconscious body and tells them that she would never make them do something like that again unless absolutely necessary.
Serena gets into her car to drive away to start a new life. However, she finds Ng inside of the car. To keep her secret, Ng forces a gun into her hand and shoots her, making it look like a suicide.
Yvonne visits the police headquarters and asks Andy where Serena was. She introduces herself to him as the new head of Torchwood, tells him about the psychic virus and invites him to dinner. Andy thinks she looks a bit sad, but she denies it.
Mr Colchester meets with Jack at a restaurant and impliedly accuses him of having made a psychic worm from the ruins of the intelligence of the Cardiff Bay Intelligent Hotel and Spa. He theorises that Red Doors took the worm and made it into a weapon to drive people to violence rather than simply encourage rebellious thought. He tells Jack to stop working with them, saying that he knew what he had done and knew what he would do.
Cast
- Captain Jack Harkness - John Barrowman
- Yvonne Hartman - Tracy-Ann Oberman
- Ng - Alexandria Riley
- Mr Colchester - Paul Clayton
- Orr - Sam Béart
- Tyler Steele - Jonny Green
- Rhys Williams - Kai Owen
- Sgt. Andy Davidson - Tom Price
- Serena - Kezrena James
- Waitress - Kerry Joy Stewart
References
- Serena is told to "piss off" by a crazy guy outside the newsagent's.
- Serena catsits for an old woman who owns a large number of them.
- Serena is allergic to cats in large numbers.
- Yvonne gives her team bagels.
- Yvonne uses a drill to do up the boardroom, which Ng did not know that they had.
- Tyler has hooked up with a man.
- A group of fathers set fire to a youth football ground as the coach was suspected of child abuse.
- A man was made to drink antifreeze as revenge for poisoning the neighbourhood dogs. He survived.
- Mike headed the Law and Order Task Force.
- Sexual assault is a major taboo with the Sorvix. Eating their own children, however, is not.
- Serena brings Andy bacon and black coffee.
- Orr can tell what people feel from social media.
- Ng says that all of Andy's files make her feel like she is in Smith's.
- Orr tells a father that their baby is ugly.
- Mike raped Serena on an awayday.
- Ng uses retcon.
- Anwen has a teacher called Mrs Stokes.
- The Meme is a psychic worm.
Notes
to be added
Continuity
- Andy isn't allowed out of the station in case he kills someone. (AUDIO: The Empty Hand)
- Yvonne shows a preference for using first names at work. (TV: Army of Ghosts)
- The psychic worm has a similar DNA structure to the sentient hotel. (AUDIO: Superiority Complex)
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