fandomweekly | [#094] Hidden In Plain Sight (Torchwood)

Theme Prompt: #094 – Secret Lair
Title: Hidden In Plain Sight
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating/Warnings: PG / None
Bonus: Yes.
Word Count: 1000
Summary: Greg and his older brother Michael have been headhunted by a man who claims to belong to Torchwood, but can this really be the entrance to the organisation’s base or is someone having them on?

“Are you sure this is the way in?” A dubious expression on his face, Greg studied the unassuming wooden door; it was weathered with age, hardly the sort of door you’d expect to lead into a semi-secret organisation’s base of operations.

“This is where Mr Jones said he’d meet us,” Michael replied. “Mermaid Quay, Cardiff Bay, just off the Roald Dahl Plas. I don’t see any other doors around here, d’you?”

“No, it’s just… Well, I always thought this place was, like, a tourist information office.” Greg pointed to a sign above the door. “That’s what the sign says.”

“Maybe it used to be, but how much business could a tourist kiosk get tucked away out of sight down here? Place probably went bust and then Torchwood took it over. Maybe after whatever it was blew that big crater in the Plas last year.”

“Thought that was caused by a ruptured gas main.”

Michael snorted. “You believed that? It was probably a cover story for a terrorist attack or something, meant to keep the public from panicking. C’mon, I guess we should go inside. Torchwood wouldn’t want us hanging around out here drawing attention to ourselves. ‘Sides, if we dither about, they might think we’ve changed our minds. How often d’you think ordinary blokes like us get offered a chance to work for Torchwood? They most likely prefer to recruit from the police or the army, and here we are, just a couple of computer nerds. Y’know, they’re probably watching us right now, to see what we’ll do.”

“How? I don’t see any cameras.”

“Are you kidding me? They’ve got a ton of high-tech stuff; you’ve seen that modified Range Rover they drive. I bet they’ve got security cameras that don’t even look like cameras, not to mention a bunch of other sensors. They wouldn’t want just anyone getting inside their secret base.”

“That’s true, I guess. Okay, lead the way. You always do.” Greg was well used to trailing after his older brother.

Glancing back over his shoulder with an excited grin, Michael turned the handle and pushed the shabby door open…

There was a light on inside, and as Greg closed the door behind him and turned to examine his surroundings, he couldn’t help but laugh.

“It IS a tourist office!” There was a counter across the back of the room with racks of leaflets on it, a couple of free-standing carousels packed with postcards, shelves of touristy souvenirs, from plush Welsh dragons, to mugs, keyrings, button badges, and collectable teaspoons, even a selection of buckets and spades, beachballs, and sunhats.

Michael’s face fell. “Maybe that Jones character wasn’t serious about recruiting us, sent us on a wild goose chase to get rid of us. Hell, maybe he wasn’t even Torchwood! We should probably just leave.”

Greg disagreed. “Not yet. This could be some kind of test to see if we’re serious about joining Torchwood. He said to meet him here at two-thirty; according to my watch, we’re five minutes early, so we wait. He might still show up.”

“Yeah, okay, that makes a kind of sense. We’ll give him until… Oh, say two-forty, just in case he’s got held up somewhere, but if he doesn’t show by then, we leave. Good thing I didn’t hand in my notice at work yet.” Michael worked at a computer company out on one of Cardiff’s industrial estates. Greg was barely a month away from graduating from the University of Cardiff.

The pair browsed the goods on sale, lost in their own thoughts, so they were startled by the sudden rattle of the outdated bead curtain behind the counter, spinning around to find Mr Jones smiling at them.

“Right on time. Excellent!”

Greg glanced down at his watch; two-thirty on the dot. “Actually, we got here a bit early,” he admitted.

“I know, we’ve been watching you.”

“See?” Michael smirked at his brother. “Told you they’d have hidden cameras!”

“We do indeed,” Mister Jones confirmed. “And we can tap into various CCTV systems around the city. If you decide to join Torchwood, you’ll have a lot of very advanced tech to play with, but first, let’s begin with a tour of our base. We call it the Hub, although it’s not the original one. That got blown up last year. You no doubt saw the gigantic hole in the Plas. Thankfully only the upper level got destroyed; I managed to lock down the lower levels, so we didn’t lose anything irreplaceable.” As he spoke, Jones must have triggered some kind of mechanism, because behind the brothers the entrance door locked, and before them, a section of the wall swung away to reveal a passageway.

Greg’s jaw dropped “Whoa! That is so cool!”

“If you’d follow me?”

The brothers didn’t need telling twice, trailing behind their guide to a lift, which took them deep into the ground. The lift let them out into an antechamber, then a swipe of a security card allowed them into the base itself.

It was immense. Tiled floors, staircases leading to offices and other rooms on several levels, what looked like some kind of indoor greenhouse, an open-plan area containing a dozen computer stations, and even what looked like a small pool at one end, lush with greenery.

“Welcome to Torchwood. We’ve done some extensive modernisation on this level, but I like to think we’ve managed to maintain a degree of charm.”

“It’s amazing! Way nicer than where I’m working at the moment.”

Murals brightened the walls, and indirect lighting imparted an air of cosiness despite the main area seeming as vast as a rugby field, although it was probably only half that size.

“Offices, research labs, medial bay, break room, complete with a full kitchen, which is more than we used to have.” Mr Jones indicated various areas as they passed. “I imagine this is what you’re most interested in.” The computers were state-of-the-art.

“We’re in,” said Michael.

No way were they turning this job down!

The End

[#094] Hidden In Plain Sight (Torchwood)

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