Torchwood: Slow Decay by Andy Lane

off eBay (and, as far as Owen was concerned, everything he needed in life could be bought online or obtained from a bar). In response, Toshiko logically proved to Owen that biology – the science he had spent his life following – didn’t exist, being partly biochemistry, which was just a branch of chemistry, and partly classification of forms, which was just stamp collecting. And chemistry itself was just a branch of physics because it depended on how atoms and molecules interacted. Owen got really tetchy when she got to that point in the argument, and either put his headphones on and turned the music up loud or just stalked off in a huff. And that left Toshiko feeling like she had lost the argument, because the last thing in the world she wanted was for Owen to stop talking to her, and that was something that physics just couldn’t explain.
    Openings in the brick walls on either side of her provided glimpses of large, brick-lined chambers, some containing piles of crates and some row upon row of metal shelving filled with anonymous boxes. It was the Torchwood Archive; Ianto’s domain, where the various bits of alien technology that Jack and the team had found, confiscated or otherwise obtained were now stored. Not for any particular purpose, but just to keep them out of the way.
    A shadowy figure stepped from an opening ahead of her, and Toshiko stopped dead, putting a hand to her mouth to suppress a sudden scream.
    Gwen lit the aromatherapy candle in the centre of the dinner table. Sandalwood and cedar-wood: that should set the right mood, if the search she had done on the Internet before popping out to the shops meant anything at all.
    As a thin trail of smoke drifted up towards the ceiling, she stood back and looked at the table. The sweet white wine was open and cooling in the ice bucket, the good cutlery – the stuff with the beech-wood handles which hadn’t come out of the cupboard since Rhys’s sister had come to visit the year before last – was on the table and the food was cooking gently in the oven. Chicken breasts marinated in lime juice and orange juice, then wrapped in Parma ham and left in an oven dish on gas mark 4 for three-quarters of an hour. The smell was making her salivate already, and the food still had a quarter of an hour to go. The asparagus was in a dish, ready to pop in the microwave when the chicken was ready, and she even had a little parmesan to crumble over the asparagus when it was cooked. It didn’t matter that Gwen thought parmesan smelled like puke and asparagus made her pee smell terrible; Rhys liked them, and this was all for him.
    She crossed the room to the light switch and turned the lights down, just a little bit more, then went across to Rhys’s pride and joy, the stereo stack system that he’d bought, piece by piece, from an audio specialist in Cardiff, and set the CD going. The Flaming Lips burst from the speakers in a fanfare of confusion. Quickly she pressed the stop button and selected something quieter from the rack. Suzanne Vega; that should do. As the strains of ‘Luka’ drifted across the room she allowed herself to relax. Just a little bit.
    Just two things left. One of them was Rhys.
    She had texted him earlier, and told him he needed to be home by seven p.m. He’d texted back saying that he was in the centre of town on a job, but he’d be back on time. It was five to seven now, and she was beginning to get a little edgy.
    Which reminded her. The alien device. She didn’t want to be edgy when that was switched on. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and held it, then let it out gently, visualising her tension flowing out of her with the breath. It worked: she could feel muscles that she didn’t even know were tense letting go and she could feel her fingers unclenching.
    She had put the alien tech beneath the candle, in the middle of the table. She wanted it somewhere central, and that was the best place. It even looked like something decorative,