"Get that thing to the cells!" came that untracable American accent. The
voice was strong, booming through the Hub as its owner raced through the workspace. Eddie jumped from his chair, running to aid Quin with the latest aquisition.
      "And for the love of Darwin," the voice snapped. "Don't get near the
mouth!"
      There was a harsh slam of a door. Quin groaned under the weight of the
creature he was left to carry alone. Eddie grabbed what he assumed to be an arm, or at least an arm-like limb and hoisted it over his shoulder. "Where'd you two find this one?"
      He caught the green glare from the other side of the creature's oversized head. "The Karvakian crash site at Ground Zero," he replied. His words clipped and hurried.
      "This is a Karvakian?"
      "No," Quin snapped as they managed to drag the body through the doors of the larger cargo lift that bypassed the infirmary and recreational levels. "Where the hell is Matilda?"
      Eddie winced as he shifted the weight he carried long enough to squeeze into the lift with him and the creature. "This thing really stinks, don't it?" He received no response as they rode in the awkward silence down below the earth.

---

      She looked up when the door was flung open with such force she thought it might bounce back and strike the brunette man that came through it in the face. Said man had quickly unbuttoned his shirt, and was pulling it off as he went straight for a filing cabinet.
      "What's wrong?" the older woman asked instinctively as he tried to both undress and rummage through a filing drawer.
      "Need to change," he said. "Gungan vomit. Acid."
      Her eyes went wide as she rose from the seat and backed up against the wall. "Okay, I seriously-"
      "It'll be fine," he said. "Just... don't touch the fabric." He pulled off the shirt and flung it into the waste paper bin at the side of the desk. Martha shouted in suprise and edged along the wall further away from the desk and the man.
      He had a replacement shirt in hand. A soft, pastel blue. Slightly wrinkled. This he sniffed before offering it to the woman. "Does this smell foul to you?"
      "Jesus Christ just put your shirt on and get rid of... whatever it is that... that-"
      "Oh! Water! PERFECT!" He snatched the glass of water Martha had previously been drinking from off the desk. Quickly, he leaned forward and in a rather awkward way of doing so, poured the water on his back.
      "Oh god yes... That hit the spot." He stood up straight and beamed at her proudly before peering into the bin. "Oo... Just in time too. Look at it... blue cotton soup."
      She sighed as she nervously moved back to her previous position. Stealing a few seconds to peer into the bin herself, she wrinkled her nose and shook her head. "We'll need to get Quincy in here to deal with that properly before it eats a hole through the floor."
      "Nah. It doesn't eat through steel," he said sniffing the shirt once again. "Seriously, does this smell foul? All I can smell right now is burning-"
      "No need for details, Jack," she said, holding up her hand.
      The young man shrugged and quickly had the shirt undone and pulled on. But he left it open for the time being. His abdomen wasn't particularly of note. He was well toned, but not spectacularly so. It was perfectly... average, in all sense of the word.
      Martha shhok her head once again, turning the computer monitor so that the young man could see the display. Yet another grayscale video relay of the man they kept locked in the basement below.
      The man's face pulled into a smile, his shaggy brown hair, matted down with grime and sweat, was scratched at before being abandoned in a wild and unkempt fashion. "Yeah..." he said. "I knew I forgot about something..."
      Her brown eyes stared at him, nay, glared. Her expression, before having been annoyed and disgruntled had fallen now to solid steel. He had seen that expression on the 50-something woman's face more than enough times to know what it meant. "Close the door," she said sternly.
      He swallowed hard, giving a nod before turning and doing as he was told.
      There wasn't a lot of things in the world that Jack Harborne, director of Torchwood Cardiff was afraid of. But a very disgruntled Martha Jones Milligan was one of the very few.

---

      Eddie was standing doubled over, trying to catch his breath. The air in the cell block wasn't particularly fresh, but it was a slice of heaven compared to breathing near that monster.
      Quin punched in the final security codes to lock the cell. That last stretch down the corridor of cell block 41 was rough work. The sedatives had finally worn off, and the creature was constantly trying to vomit on them. Though, it was having trouble since Eddie had mistakenly taken the Gungan's probiscuous snout to be an arm. Needless to say the young man had been more than suprised to find that there was a very foul, very dangerous substance spraying out from the appendage draped over his shoulder.
      "Are you injured?" Quin said, examining his suit jacket for any stray droplets of the deadly bodily fluid.
      Eddie checked himself over before shaking his head and standing upright. "No, I think I'm good," he replied. After the spray had begun, his shirt had been ripped off. Thankfully, he'd remembered to wear something underneath, thinking that if the day was slow enough, he might pop down to the company gym.
      "You've got a bit of red on you."
      He looked down at his shirt, then squirreled his head around to try and get a look at his back. The white undershirt seemed fine, if only slightly dirty now. Until he noticed the spreading red patch on his side where he had sustained injuries a few days before. The shopping mall incident.
      "Let's go up and I'll properly dress that for you. It's probably infected by now."
      "No. I'm fine."
      "Look, you just helped me carry that thing down here. Let me make sure you don't die of infection because you were careless. Unfortunately for us, it would be hard to replace you."
      The younger smirked proudly. "Really? Comming from you... well..."
      Quin narrowed his eyes as he looked at him. "If it's any consolation, a little of me died inside when I said that. Now come on." He turned on his heel rather robotically it seemed, and headed for the nearest lift. Eddie was thankful it wasn't the cargo lift again. He was sure it would take the office manager a week or more to get the stench out of that small space.

---

      After cleaning herself up numerous times in the guest suites showers, Mattie had indeed gone to the firing range. It was her recreational relaxation. The only thing she could count on to help get her thoughts in order after a disturbing mission. As she managed to put the sight of an alien giving birth, which reminded her sickeningly of when milk begins to curdle after it's been in the ice box too long, other things began to bubble towards the forefront of her mind.
      Namely, the bloke they locked up in the vaults. She'd been too tired that night when she and Eddie were debriefed on the situation. Too tired and worn out to question both Quin's behavior and Jack's... Well, he was always a strange one. That was usually a good thing. But he was also usually much more informative about the creatures, be they humanoid or otherwise, that were hauled in.
      This time though, something struck the young inspector as odd. She may have been horrid with names and remembering birthdays. She may have been shite at remembering her father's special dressing recepie that he only used during Christmas holiday. But if there was one thing she had managed to master over the years, and had helped her tremendoulsly as a police officer, it was that she had a knack for faces. She not only had a knack for them, she remembered every single one she had ever seen in her lifetime.
      Up until the shopping mall incident, she thought this talent was foolproof. She thought it was her greatest asset. But now she questioned herself.
      As she fired off half a clip at the target across the shooting range, she realized why the man in the basement presented such a headache to her. Though she had never met this man before, never seen him before, she knew his face. Where from, she could only guess. But she had seen it somewhere, somewhen.
      And then, as she slammed the side of her fist against the button to retract the line on which the cut-out weevil was attatched it struck her. Her second day in Cardiff as part of the team. She'd been handed a thick volume stuffed with handwritten notes and photographs and old typed manuscripts.
      That volume, she knew, was somewhere in the vaults. And inside it was the answer she now sought.