Fic: A Very British Coup (Black Panther/Torchwood, PG-13)
Author: Prochytes.
Fandom: Black Panther/Torchwood.
Rating: PG-13.
Characters: Nakia, Everett Ross, Shuri, T’Challa (Black Panther); Gwen Cooper, Lois Habiba, Jack Harkness, Rex Matheson (Torchwood).
Disclaimer: Not mine at all, any of it.
Summary: The Republic of Wales has a secret.
Word Count: 6262.
A/N: Spoilers for Torchwood to 4x10: “The Blood Line” and the 2018 Black Panther film; small spoilers for Thor: The Dark World.
1. Welsh Incident
4 Reasons We Love The Republic Of Wales
It isn’t all Tom Jones and Laverbread.
Wales hasn’t always been popular – even with the Welsh.
Roger Jones
@BigFatRog
“Land of my fathers? My fathers can keep it.” – Dylan Thomas. Never a truer word, mate. Never a truer word.
Via: mirthattydfil.co.wa
But Wales today is more than an eisteddfod waiting to happen. Here are just a few of the reasons to love Europe’s youngest and hippest sovereign state.
1. The Brecon Beacons. OK - secession’s not the reason for Wales’ natural beauty. It was born that way. Still, get a load of that bone structure.
Via Flickr: reddragonpics
2. But Wales isn’t just a pretty face. This tiny country was the one of the first to pass laws against anti-Inhuman discrimination.
Via Flickr: standingup
3. The Cardiff Expo. Some cutting-edge nanotech with your rarebit, cariad? Don’t mind if I do. Take that, Tony Stark!
Via Flickr: reddragonpics
4. Angharad. That is all.
Via reddit.com
(BuzzFeed article: accessed 4.3.2018)
***
Everett Ross was already late for his ten a. m. with the Mayor of Cardiff when he glanced across at the Water Tower while crossing the Plass, and got a glimpse of who was standing beside it. He frowned, and stopped for another look. Ross had never been a man disposed to doubt the evidence of his eyes; recent experience had only dimmed his scepticism more. But that particular figure – a little rumpled in outline, and tie-less, as (Ross recalled) he had usually been – had no business being seen in Cardiff, or anywhere else.
Ross hoped that, on a second viewing, sight would expose memory’s three-card trick, and reveal the man across the Plass to be nothing more than some solid stranger. A gaggle of tourists blocked his view for a moment – some of those assembling for the Freedom of the City ceremony in the evening, perhaps, or a battalion of the self-renewing legion always eager for a glimpse of Angharad at play. By the time they had passed, the figure was gone. Only the slow sidle of water down the Tower remained to accompany Ross’s thoughts (as he picked up the pace on the approach to the Mayor’s office) about Rex Matheson – the part that he had played in a troubled world, and the murk that had swirled around his departure from it.
***
Ross’s preoccupation spilled over, rather too obviously, into his belated meeting with the Mayor.
“Penny for them?”
Ross was jolted out of his reverie. “Pardon?”
“Penny for your thoughts?” The Mayor looked at him inquiringly. “I couldn’t help noticing that my commentary on the security implications of our infrastructure reforms didn’t seem to be holding your attention.”
“Oh. Er.” Ross decided to lighten the mood. “Let’s be honest – is anyone really riveted by roads?”
“My husband is in charge of the Transport Ministry.”
Ross remembered why he didn’t do diplomacy. “Ah. Um. Sorry?”
The Mayor looked at him appraisingly, before relenting and pushing over a plate of biscuits. “Fair enough. Infrastructure’s not for all tastes. What’s on your mind?”
The external query jerked loose the word at which his recall had been fumbling. “Torchwood.”
The Mayor smiled. “That’s a name to conjure with, in this town.”
“You know what it means?”
“Well… no.” The Mayor’s tones were replete with the pain of a professional politician forced to admit there was something she did not know. “Torchwood is one of Cardiff’s urban legends. About a decade back, there was a gang of weirdos flouncing around in a big black SUV who used to call themselves that. Christ knows why.”
“Oh.”
“I think that they might have been a rubbish indie band, grubbing for some free publicity. We suffered through a lot of those, back in the day. Not,” the Mayor added hastily, as though recalling herself to the order of service, “that Noughties Wales didn’t also enjoy the flourishing and vibrant music scene which it still retains. Think Catatonia; think Stereophonics; think the Manics.”
“Absolutely,” said Ross, wondering whether he could be bothered to hit Wikipedia after the meeting about all that, and deciding, on balance, that he probably couldn’t.
“Where did you hear of Torchwood, if you don’t mind my asking? I always thought that they were local news.”
“Nothing important.” Ross looked out of the window, over the Plass. The Tower continued to ripple in the morning light. “Something to do with a man I used to know.”
“Well, whatever Torchwood were, they’re long gone. We’re living in the future now, Commander.”
Ross reached for another biscuit. “Lucky us.”
***
“How has it fared, so far?” Nakia asked, without looking up from her desk, when Ross dropped by her hotel room after his meeting broke for lunch.
“The Mayor of Cardiff thinks – with some justification – that I’m a moron, but I probably haven’t started a war with the Welsh Republic. On balance, I’m considering that a win.” Ross craned over her shoulder. “What are you looking at?”
“The many deaths of me.”
“Huh?”
Nakia waved a hand above the desk. Her face stared back at Ross a hundred-fold, from a plastic field of cards. “My cover identities. If I am to be in charge of our Outreach Programme, I must retire them.”
“I see.” Ross examined the furrow between Nakia’s brows. “Think you can cope with having to be yourself, after all these years?”
He was relieved to see Nakia break into a smile. “Is the old spy asking for a friend?”
“Maybe just a little.”
Nakia shrugged. “I can live with it.” She resumed her scrutiny of the multifarious credentials. “These cannot.”
“Thanks again for letting me ride shotgun on the royal jet.” Ross sat down on the bed and loosened his tie. “The Company and the Joint Counter Terrorist Center appreciate your help in cutting down on our carbon footprint.”
“Our pleasure.”
“I’m still not quite clear on why T’Challa decided to accept the Freedom of Cardiff in person.”
“He likes the symbolism, and the timing.” Nakia picked up one badge, and smiled in reverie. “Wakanda and Wales are two countries new to the world stage. The King thinks it appropriate that we should step into the light together. And Wales is a story of triumph against the odds. You can imagine how that resonates with T’Challa.”
Ross recalled a bed of snow, in M’Baku’s realm. “I can.” He poured himself a glass of water. “The Welsh economic miracle took everyone by surprise. I remember the Company analysts scratching their heads about it. It’s not as though Wales had North Sea oil to play with.”
“Exactly.” Nakia replaced the badge. “Does the security situation look robust?”
“Solid as a rock. Solid as a vibranium rock. Except…”
“Except?”
“Probably nothing. I thought I saw Rex Matheson, in Roald Dahl Plass.”
“Rex Matheson?”
“Someone I knew at the Company. A jack-ass, even by our exacting standards, but a smart guy, when he could be convinced to put his brain in gear.”
“Why would his presence here be an issue?”
“Because Rex Matheson is dead. Remember the weird zombie plague, a few years back? Maybe you don’t. This was before the Chitauri, even; it gets hard to hang on to the details of the last apocalypse but twelve. Matheson was embroiled in that, somehow. When it ended, he was an early re-adopter of mortality.” Ross sipped the water. “Company scuttlebutt said that Matheson’s last project, just before he died, was connected to a word I didn’t recognize.”
“What was the word?”
“‘Torchwood.’” Nakia’s head snapped around. “You’re the second woman this morning who’s seemed to know that name. I’m guessing that you don’t link it to the Grammys.”
“You’re positive that this Matheson was looking into Torchwood?”
“Yes. What does it mean?”
Nakia frowned. “It means that one of my deaths will have to be deferred.”
***
“Ulysses Klaue was not always Wakanda’s bogeyman-in-chief,” Nakia continued, as she began to pack away her cards. “He was not the first to guess what we were hiding. Ever since the days of dawn, there have been outsiders who glimpsed the light, who envied it. Long before there was Klaue, there was Torchwood.”
“Jesus. How far back does all this go?”
“The Nineteenth Century, or so our records say. Torchwood was the dirtiest of the British Empire’s secrets, the darkest shadow of the sun that never set. An agency outside the government, beyond the police. Those were the fat years of imperial plunder, but Torchwood was unique in its thirst for marvels – and its zeal for pursuing them. The educated thug, who knows where the old lady hides her rubies.”
“Torchwood found out about vibranium?”
“They suspected. They never knew quite enough to be a problem. All Wakandan War Dogs still have standing orders to investigate if Torchwood rears its head. That hasn’t happened, to my knowledge, in at least a decade.”
“It probably isn’t happening now.” Ross spread his hands. “I think I saw a man who might have been looking into Torchwood when he died. Torchwood may have had a presence in this town years ago. But why would a relic of the British Empire retain any interest in the Cardiff of 2018? Wales isn’t even part of the United Kingdom any more.”
“Yes – but secession is recent, and it wasn’t pretty. Torchwood of old wouldn’t have been above subverting a neighbour state; your Center would want to know, if that is so. Maybe your Agent Matheson went dark to chase them down.”
“Or maybe a soon-to-retire spy is going stir-crazy, and wants to stretch her legs.”
“Please?”
In an experience of women which had extended over many nations and three separate continents, Ross had encountered few as tough as Nakia. Nevertheless, she could deploy one hell of a doe-eyed stare. No wonder T’Challa turned to putty around her. Ross sighed.
“OK. What do you need?”
***
“Commander Ross’s friend has arrived,” the Mayor’s P. A. announced, about three quarters of an hour into the afternoon segment of the meeting.
“Wonderful,” said the Mayor. “We’re pretty much done. Would you be an angel and show her in?”
“Of course. Did the First Minister come back with an answer about the end of the month?”
“He did. It’s locked in, I’m afraid. No help expected through the usual channels.”
“I see.” The P. A. nodded politely at Ross, and withdrew, shutting the door to the office behind her.
“Your P. A. sounds English,” said Ross.
“She is.”
“Isn’t that politically sensitive?”
“Taking bread from good Welsh mouths, you mean? Wales is a forward-looking country, Commander Ross. We bear no ill-will to our English brothers and sisters.” The Mayor smiled. Ross had read somewhere that a good politician could smile in a way that would make ten thousand people at once feel that they had just been individually made privy to a secret. The Mayor of Cardiff, he suspected, was a very good politician. “And if it’s one in the eye for Whitehall when I poach their staff, well, that’s icing on the cake.” She looked over Ross’s shoulder as the door opened once again. “You must be Ms. Kimathi. Welcome to Cardiff. Commander Ross has told me a lot about you.”
“All true, I hope,” said Nakia, coming forward to shake the Mayor’s hand, “and do please call me Jane.”
Ross drifted away from the murmur of the mutual introductions, to the further reaches of the Mayor’s airy but understated office. A sampler hanging on the far wall caught his eye. He wandered over to inspect it.
“That which is marred at birth Time shall not mend,” he read aloud. “Nor water out of bitter well make clean; All evil thing returneth at the end, Or elseway walketh in our blood unseen.”
“Nice, isn’t it?” The Mayor’s voice at Ross’s elbow made him jump. He hadn’t heard her move. “Chaucer.”
“So I see,” said Ross, peering at the attribution. “Bit dark, surely, for a motivational poster?”
“This is Wales, Commander Ross. Our mantra is chirpiness, on a bedrock of despair. That was nearly the national motto, you know. I lobbied for it, but the PR gurus kicked up a fuss.” The Mayor beamed back at Nakia, who had settled in a seat, and produced a tablet. “This puff piece for your journalist mate shouldn’t take too long. Why don’t you sit out in the foyer until it’s done? My P. A. can bring you an espresso.”
“Sounds tempting.” Ross turned on his heel. “Thanks again for giving Jane your valuable time.”
“I always try to make time for the press.”
Ross headed for the foyer. The Mayor had turned her attention back to Nakia.
“Your beads are lovely. Sorry for the gauche question, but do they have any cultural significance?”
“None at all,” replied Nakia brightly. “They just look nice.”
“I can see them being ace as worry beads.”
“Wouldn’t know,” Ross heard Nakia say, as the door closed behind him. “Never do.”
***
“Your espresso, Commander Ross.”
Ross looked up from his smartphone. “Thank you.”
“Is everything OK? You look a little preoccupied.”
“Oh, nothing. Just slightly puzzled about something I read, that’s all.”
The Mayor’s P. A. smiled, and returned to her desk. Ross continued to stare, with furrowed brow, at a Kipling website.
Hello, colonizer, said Shuri, in his ear. Ross choked momentarily on his coffee, eliciting another worried look from the P. A.. He swallowed; pressed some random buttons on his ’phone; and held it to his ear.
“Hello? I, um, wasn’t expecting you to call me from this number.”
What? Oh – I see. You’re in company, and you’re wondering how I can talk inside your head.
“That was at the forefront of my mind, yes.” Ross grinned in reassurance at the P. A. until she went back to her typing. He lowered his voice. “How exactly is that possible?”
A new design I’ve just developed. I can run coded signals to the auditory nerve from a vibranium tattoo, which the brain then interprets as my voice. Ditto in reverse, for vibrations from the larynx.
Ross’s forehead creased. “But I don’t have….” he glanced at the P. A., “…one of those.”
You do now, o tool of the hegemony. I gave you one when I dug out your bullet.
“Seriously?”
No word of a lie. You have a tramp stamp. Shuri flourished the idiom proudly, like a fake I.D.. Ross sighed, contemplating, not for the first time, the hazards of wrangling a human-ceiling intelligence with the outlook of a bouncy teenager. How had S.H.I.E.L.D. corralled the Starks for all those years?
“I’m fairly sure that you’re supposed to clear stuff like that with your brother. In advance.”
Oh, you’re no fun. Is Nakia in position?
“Can’t you just ask her?”
I’m streaming data to and from Nakia’s dinky tablet, but that’s all. Her current tattoo does not support this tech. She makes excuses whenever I tell her to come in for an upgrade.
“I think that I’d probably be a little apprehensive about going under the knife of my ex’s sister.”
You spies. So untrusting.
“Anyway, she’s where she told me she needed to be. What are you planning to do?”
Nakia didn’t know much about Torchwood’s playbook, but she said that, in their heyday, they liked to keep tabs on municipal authorities. If they’re still around in Cardiff, they’re probably surveilling the Mayor. I’ve now initiated a deep scan of the office through Nakia’s Kimoyo beads. If any bugs are active, my tech should enable me to run a back-trace.
“Sounds good.”
I’ve also been data-diving on the personnel Nakia mentioned. It shouldn’t be long before… Oh. What? No. This can’t be right.
“What is it?” said Ross, careful to keep his tone light, for public consumption.
I… Shuri’s voice trailed off, before returning at a volume that almost made him wince. Commander Ross, you need to get yourself and Nakia out of there.
“Why?”
I’m reading the energy signatures of the office. The whole place is larded with very serious tech. Ross felt a chill settle in his stomach. Shuri never thought that tech was serious. To her, it was always a glorious game. I have nothing like this. Stark has nothing like this. The only people who ever had anything like this were S.H.I.E.L.D., and that was because…
“It wasn’t local?”
If by “local”, you mean “human”, then you’re right. Shuri drew a hissing breath. And that’s not all…
Ross listened on, with an expression of bland equanimity, for almost half a minute, until Shuri’s voice (… which means that you need to get to Nakia at once. I’m sending this to her tablet, as well, but I’m not even su…) cut out in mid-word. He sighed, said “I see; thanks for calling” into the ’phone, and looked up.
The Mayor’s P. A. was looking back at him.
“I think I’d better collect Ms. Kimathi and go,” he said, easily. “We’re both invited to the reception after the ceremony tonight; we should change.”
“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, Commander,” the P. A. said. From behind the office door, Ross heard a muffled thud. He frowned.
“I don’t see how…” Ross played back the recent memory of his environment in his head – the Muzak to which every spy’s mind learns to sing along – with more attention than he had been able to give it while listening to Shuri. He kicked himself. Going soft. “You’ve been typing with only one hand for about a minute. You have a gun trained on me, under that desk.”
“Yes,” the P. A. said. She sounded sad. “I’m afraid I do.”
From beyond the door, there came another thud.
2. Dayspring Mishandled
Secession of Wales
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2018) (learn how and when to remove this template message)
The Secession of Wales was the withdrawal of Wales from the United Kingdom, which took place on 1 March 2015. The withdrawal was the consequence of the 2014 Welsh independence referendum, and led to the formation of the Republic of Wales, the first independent Welsh government in more than seven hundred years.
Contents
1 Background: Welsh nationalism, 1858-2009
2 Prelude to referendum, 2009-2014
2.1 Cardiff Marches, 2009-11
2.2 Greenwich Incident, 2013
3 Welsh independence referendum, 2014
3.1 Campaign
3.2 Voting
3.3 Controversies
4 Secession and aftermath
5 See also
6 References
7 External links
***
“Was the espresso OK?” asked the Mayor’s P. A..
“It was great, thank you,” Ross replied. The plump armchair wheezed in protest as he attempted surreptitiously to shift his weight. Fat chance of making it out of the line of fire.
“We’re breaking in a new machine. It’s temperamental.” It sounded as though furniture had just splintered behind the door.
“No – absolutely fine.” He studied her face. “Is this a usual part of your job? You seem quite calm.”
“Terrified, always.” The Englishwoman bit her lip. “But functional. Please don’t move.”
Ross had opened his mouth to reply when the door burst open, and the Mayor of Cardiff tumbled through. She found her feet with disconcerting grace, turning to face Nakia, who had stalked after her.
“Where did you find a ring blade?” Ross asked, looking at what Nakia was holding.
“Brought it in my bag,” said Nakia. A bruise bloomed on her cheek; she was breathing heavily.
Ross turned his attention back to the Mayor. His eyes widened. “Where did she find a ring blade?”
Nakia had dropped into a martial stance. “She caught it.”
“Not as impressive as it sounds, Commander Ross,” said the Mayor. She wiped blood away from her split lip. “I’m fairly sure that that was only your friend’s second serve. A reflex test, which I passed – or failed, depending on your perspective. Very clever. Hmm.” She cocked her head on one side. “Nakia of the River Tribe, unless I’m much mistaken. You more than live up to your reputation.”
“I am wondering,” said Nakia, “why I do not know yours.”
“I think that Shuri found the answer to that question.” Ross kept an eye on the Mayor’s P. A.. She looked flustered, but resolute. No immediate respite, then, from the possibility of a bullet.
“What do you mean, Ross?” Nakia asked.
“The Mayor of Cardiff, as a person, doesn’t exist. Her history before a few years back is fake. And she’s not the only one.”
“How is that even possible?”
“It’s easier than it used to be. Project Insight drove a coach and horses through cyber-security. Who knows how many records were corrupted when Ultron tried to eat the Internet? All the same, Shuri says that the imposture is immaculate. Your Princess is conceivably the smartest woman on this planet. Even she could barely see the joins – and even she would have trouble proving it.”
The Mayor smiled. “What does that tell you, Commander Ross?”
“It tells me that Killmonger wasn’t the only person who ever stole a country.” Ross shook his head. “We were wrong, Nakia. Torchwood isn’t beyond the Welsh Government. Torchwood isn’t subverting the Welsh Government. Torchwood is the Welsh Government.”
“Once again,” the Mayor said absently, “very clever.” Ross saw tendons sharpen in her wrist as she balled a fist; the crease of muscle in Nakia’s shoulders as the War Dog leaned forward. He decided to go for broke.
“We’re at an impasse, here,” he said. “Your P. A. can perforate me in a second. On the other hand, you – somehow – cut off a Princess of Wakanda in mid-sentence. She’ll have noticed. Right now, Shuri’s most likely despatching her brother to see what’s wrong. That should scare you more than a bloody gunboat.” He took a breath. “We still have a dwindling chance to dial this down. I hope you’ll take it.”
The Mayor of Cardiff stared at him for a long and loaded moment. Then she sighed; made a mollient gesture at her P. A.; and proffered the ring blade in her hand to Nakia, who warily accepted it.
“You’re a much better diplomat when your blood is up, Commander Ross,” she said.
“I have my moments.” Ross exhaled gratefully. “But I’m still struggling to see the whole picture. Why has an echo of Empire installed itself as the first Government of Wales?”
“Do you think that we should tell them?” the Mayor asked her P. A..
“I think that we should show them,” said the P. A., closing the drawer of her desk, and locking it.
“Really?” The Mayor looked Ross and Nakia up and down. “They’ll have to wrap up warm.”
Nakia arched an eyebrow. “It’s twenty degrees outside.”
“Not where we’re going,” said the Mayor.
***
Everett Ross had never liked snow – the betrayals of it, the slither and the slip, the seeming concessions to your tread that only lured you to commit your weight to a negotiation you could never win. He liked it even less after that long, nightmare trek into the Wakandan mountains, when the world had seemed only regicide and defeat. He hunched his shoulders, and hid his face in the shifting curtains of his breath. A little over fifteen feet away, tourists promenaded and ate ice-cream in the Cardiff sun.
“How do you manage to maintain this place?” Nakia asked. “I think that I can probably hazard a guess.”
“The environmental control tech for the enclosure is almost all human,” said the Mayor. She was bundled up in a massive greatcoat, as was her P. A.. Both held steaming buckets, from which arose a less than toothsome smell. “Not quite, though. We wanted to keep it discreet, but as green as possible: this place has to subtract a lot of heat. Cardiff – though you could sometimes be forgiven for thinking otherwise – is a lot more temperate than Jotunheim.”
“I’m still not seeing why you brought us here.”
“You will, shortly.”
“Perhaps we should not have called off Shuri.” Nakia turned. “Does this make any sense to you, Ross?”
“Some.” Ross raised his head. “You never really thought that this would happen, did you?”
The Mayor rolled her eyes. “This wasn’t how I planned to spend my Friday – no.”
“Not today.” Ross made a vague expansive gesture. “All of this.”
“What makes you say that?”
“The poem on your office wall. I looked it up. It isn’t Chaucer. It’s Kipling – pretending to be Chaucer. Kipling wrote it for a story about a man who runs a con. He fakes a Chaucer manuscript, because he knows that exposing the fraud later will destroy someone. But when he should pull the trigger, he finds he can’t. By the end, he has to inhabit the con that he created. Nice place you have here.” He stared steadily at the Mayor. “Lovely cage.”
There was a long silence before the Mayor spoke again.
“The First Minister should never have given me that sodding sampler. Literary flourishes are a weakness of his. It would be helpful if he could sometimes forget that he shagged Isherwood.” She looked out, through the plexiglass wall of the enclosure, over the bay. “There used to be some people: Frines, Costerdane, and Ablemarch. They were businessmen, after a fashion, and they once farmed this world like a factory chicken. When the clamour for Welsh Independence came, they thought they were quids in. We’d been fighting them for years, with fuck all to show for it. Torchwood were never very good at being heroes. But then we remembered: we were always very, very good at being thieves.”
“You stole Wales before they could,” breathed Nakia. “That’s… insane. It couldn’t work. Do you know what just happened in Wakanda?”
“We heard. Don’t get me wrong: Erik Stevens was driven and resourceful. But he was trained as a killer, not a thief. The bad pickpocket stops to admire the swag in his hand. We’re still running.”
“You haven’t told us,” said Ross, “why Torchwood cares.”
The Mayor turned, and smiled radiantly over Ross’s shoulder. “There’s someone you should meet.” She hefted her bucket, and walked forward. “Hello, Angharad.”
Ross looked round, and almost jumped out of his skin. Nothing that large should have been able to approach that quietly.
“She’s… bigger than she looked on the London footage,” said Nakia, who had also taken a prudent step back. The impossible confection of horn and bone and glinting eyes before them trotted up to the Mayor and her P. A., who started patting it and making cooing noises. “And friendlier.”
“Angharad is a sweetheart, really,” said the Mayor. She held out her bucket to the vast creature, which slurped at the protein broth inside it. “She gets cranky for the same reasons as most people: because she’s hungry; because she’s been disturbed when she’s trying to have a kip; or because the Convergence of the Nine Realms has just dumped her on someone else’s planet.”
“The Greenwich Incident,” said Nakia. “The moment Westminster lost control.”
“With only themselves to blame.” The Mayor dropped the empty bucket on the ground. “Torchwood reached out to warn the UK Government that Convergence was coming. They told us to fuck off and tried to catch us. Same old, same old. S.H.I.E.L.D. listened, but they were stretched, and only made it for the clean-up.”
“You speak to S.H.I.E.L.D.?” asked Ross.
“We have lines of communication. I hope that counts for something, as long as they’re not terrorists this week. Are they?”
The Mayor’s P.A. gave her a reproachful glance. “There was a memo.”
The Mayor looked contrite. “Sorry. In any event: you all know what went down. Svartalfheim parked on the Greenwich Meridian like it was a double yellow line, and Whitehall’s credibility was left in tatters. It took a literal deus ex machina to save the day.”
“Thor,” said Nakia.
“Mmm. Thor.”
“Mmm.”
“Am I literally the only biped in this cage who isn’t having a moment about Thor right now?” asked Ross.
Not just in the cage.
“Shuri’s back, by the way.”
Just to tell you that the story seems to be checking out. I should go; Mother is pressing me to choose a dress for the reception. She needs to chill; I’ve narrowed it down to ten.
“She’s gone again.”
“Your Princess is a marvel,” the Mayor said, quietly. “I only ever knew one other woman who could think like her – the one who built the sonic tech I used to cancel your vibranium.”
Nakia shivered, as though feeling a chill beyond the gelid grip of pseudo-Jotunheim. “Where is that woman now?”
“Beneath Roald Dahl Plass, with the rest of our honoured dead.” The Mayor looked away. “Shuri’s about eighteen, yes?”
“Thereabouts.”
“Then you’ll remember the day when those bright eyes shuttered, and that brain was stilled, and all you heard from her mouth was the 4-5-6. Greenwich was the end, but that was that day when Wales first lost its faith. London took our children to feed them to the monsters.” Ross saw the Mayor’s hand clench. “The First Minister’s sampler doesn’t get it right. A fake chunk of Chaucer will always be a fake. But I am Torchwood and the Mayor of Cardiff – just as he is Torchwood and the First Minister of Wales. None of the things we are makes any of the rest less true. What do you think that Angharad means?”
Nakia looked puzzled. “I don’t understand the question.”
“Angharad is a trophy – a prize Torchwood stole and put up on display. She didn’t become the mascot of Welsh Independence by accident; it wasn’t chance or fate that she surfaced again in Cardiff after London couldn’t hold her.”
“How did you manage that?” asked Nakia, with the disinterested curiosity of one professional quizzing another.
“My gift for sniping. The biggest tranq gun in the world. Two men who can’t die (long story – we’ll come to that) baiting her into position. And a tricked-out Harwood’s lorry with my better half at the wheel. He’s…”
“… In charge of the Transport Ministry now,” said Ross. “I remember.”
“Angharad is a trophy, like that plaster elephant Napoleon erected where the Bastille used to be. She’s also us, as Commander Ross implies: a creature used to the cold and to the dark, staked out in the wincing light for all to see.” The Mayor stroked the massive flank. “But, above all, she’s a frightened thing, far from home. We protect her, like all our waifs and strays. I’m sure Wakanda knows what Torchwood was. This is what we are. A reminder that you can blunder into virtue, as well as vice.”
Angharad huffed contentedly. Beyond the plexiglass, a woman in a tracksuit was wearily dissuading one small child from putting a chocolate sundae into the hair of another. An old man watched waves crease up to the horizon.
***
The reception after the ceremony granting T’Challa the Freedom of Cardiff was an appropriately lavish affair, at which the King of Wakanda displayed the grave bonhomie that came naturally to him in public. After his introduction to the First Minister of Wales (that famous smile, that mellifluous, oddly American-sounding voice, that deft touch at your elbow that impelled without enforcing – they really were very, very good at this), Ross secured two fingers of Talisker, and retreated to a corner. He savoured the Scotch in silence for a while, until he became aware of a presence at his shoulder.
“Ross.”
“Matheson.” Ross set down his tumbler. “You look well.”
“Never better.” A shadow passed over the big man’s face. “Ever better, actually, as you may have heard. I haven’t answered to that name in quite a while.”
“You unpersoned yourself, like your new friends? The Mayor said that the woman behind that process was dead.”
“She is. I never met her. But the tech is distributed, and self-updating. Anyone can use it, if you’re savvy enough to work out where it is. Not many have. The last was some little hacker with the Rising Tide; never did discover what happened to her.” The big man threw an olive into the air, and caught it in his mouth. “How’s life treating you?”
“I’ve just flown in an invisible jet out of a magitech kingdom hiding from the world to a magitech republic hiding from itself. I’ve had slower weeks.”
The big man chuckled. “Fair enough.” He looked out over the festive throng. Nakia (her bruises of the afternoon masked by make-up and Wakandan tech) was effortlessly charming a Cardiff businesswoman. “We didn’t think that the new head of Wakandan Outreach would be making her first popular appearance.”
“Let’s just say that today has convinced her that it’s time to step out into the light. We all get made, eventually.”
“But what do we choose to get made into?” Another olive sailed into the air. “That’s the question.”
Ross eyed his old acquaintance. “This is crazy, Rex. Your little posse stole a country. Do you ever plan to give it back?”
“Probably. But not today. It’s a tricky time.” The big man pursed his lips, and lowered his voice. “You might want to tell your Wakandan friends to be on the alert. We have intel that the end of the month will be rough.”
“For who?”
“For everyone.”
Ross held his gaze, and nodded. “I’ll pass it on.”
“Thank you.”
“All part of the service.” Ross picked up his tumbler again, and surveyed the crowd. The Mayor of Cardiff was regaling an EU diplomat with the anecdote (onerous shopping – a curious and decided terrier – a door that had swung open the wrong way) of how she had split her lip that afternoon. “The friendliest woman who ever punched your face in, working for a deathless grifter. And her incalculably efficient English P. A., who scares me more than the other two put together. You run with a strange pack now, Matheson.”
“So do you.”
Near the centre of the room, Shuri’s voice, hands, and hair appeared to be carrying on three separate conversations with three different people. Ross had already caught T’Challa checking twice to make sure that she wasn’t sneaking bubbly. He smiled, and raised his Scotch.
“Yes,” he said. “So do I.”
***
The Mayor’s P. A. liked to leave a clean desk at the end of the evening. It was an observance left over from her Westminster days. Whitehall was no longer a religion that she practised, but its sacraments gave her comfort, all the same. She looked at an open diary on her desktop, and drummed her fingers.
“Lois?”
The P. A. raised her head, to see the Mayor standing in the doorway with her coat on.
“Sorry – didn’t spot you there. How did the reception go?”
“Lovely,” the Mayor advanced into the room, “although the canapés still aren’t a patch on Rhys’s hotpot. You need to come over for dinner again, soon. Anwen hasn’t seen her god-mum in far too long.”
“I’m almost done here,” the P. A. said. “Fancy a G&T in the bar, before heading home?”
The Mayor grimaced. “Tempting, but I should probably call it a night. I’m too long in the tooth to dance with the impossibly suave King of Wakanda after going best of ten with his Outreach Director and not feel it afterwards. Middle age, Lois. You’ll see what I mean, some day.”
“Will I?” the P. A. asked.
The Mayor inspected the younger woman’s face. “Ah. The end of the month.”
“Yes. The end of the month.”
“You think we should have told our guests everything.” The Mayor sighed, and sat on the edge of her P. A.’s desk. “If everything were anything, I’d agree. But we don’t know what happens precisely – that’s the trouble. Enough to be scared, but not enough to help. Very Torchwood.” She snorted. “We’re so very different, now, yet still the same.”
“What, exactly, do we know?”
“Because of the… objects involved, a Time Lock is more-or-less inevitable. That’s why we can’t expect help through the usual channels. Not that you should ever rely on him to turn up when he’s needed, anyway.”
“Her, now. Usually.”
“Really? Oh. Memo?”
“Memo.”
“Sorry.” The Mayor kicked her heels against the desk. “I’ve had longer to come to terms with this than you. It’s practically the first thing that our fearless leader ever told me. Still, time may not mend, but at least it passes. There’ll be a day, like any other. And if there’s a day after it, there’ll be paperwork. Does that help?”
The P. A. smiled. “Possibly a little.”
“Good girl.” The Mayor stood up, and headed back to the outer door. “Maybe I have one G&T left in me, after all. Meet me at the bar when you’re finished; I’m buying. Your Mayor hath spoken.”
“I’ll see you there.”
The P. A. went back to contemplation of her screen, as the Mayor departed. She scrolled through her diary, and stopped at the end of the month. This held her attention, again, for a pensive moment. She closed the diary, and shut down the desktop, collecting her coat before she walked out into the Cardiff night.
Wed 25 April:
09h00-12h30 Ways and Means Committee.
12h30-13h30 Lunch with charity heads.
13h30-17h30 Planning Committee (QUERY – late circulation?).
Thu 26 April:
09h30-13h00 Finance Committee (papers to follow).
13h00-14h00 Strategy lunch (TBC).
14h00-18h00 Education Working Group.
Fri 27 April:
Everything changes.
FINIS