looking up at skies on fire

Anna was, in fact, extremely happy to hide herself in the vaults. She was still new to Torchwood, still learning the ropes and how to handle her colleagues (or in Owen's case, avoid him), so being left alone to do her job--giving the collection of alien artifacts a good scientific cataloging--had become her favorite way to spend the day. She didn't think she would be very good at field work. Not Torchwood's kind of field work, anyway.

That made her squirm a little as she filled out a fact sheet for the object sitting on the table in front of her. She was having to learn how to fire a gun. The weapon felt impossible large in her hands and she felt impossibly clumsy holding it. She'd tried to protest that she wouldn't need it--she was just a scientist--but her new boss had insisted. Firearms training or bust. Anna had wanted the job too badly, so she'd crumbled down and bucked up.

Then suddenly the comm blared to life and Anna's pencil went off the side of her paper in a smear of graphite.

"Oh! Oh--okay--um--I'll be right there," she stammered, jumping out of her seat, paused for a microsecond to wonder if she'd left her end of the comm open or not, and then ran upstairs anyway.

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Gwen eyeballed the computer screen, doing her best to make heads or tails of it before Anna appeared.

It was already strange enough adjusting to a new team member, but the last thing Gwen wanted was to look like the thick, newbie ex-PC to the somewhat startlingly intelligent Anna. She got enough of it from Tosh, and at least when Owen was around she didn't feel like the only one who didn't have a clue.

She glimpsed Anna appear at the top of the stairs from the vaults, and beckoned her with a flailing hand. "The Rift is spiking like mad around the city centre." She stood up, sliding her gun off her desk and holstering it in a quick move. She shot a grin at Anna. "You wanna go check it out?"

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Anna herself hurried over in a flurry of limbs and hair, her face falling as she saw Gwen holstering her gun. Oh, gods. She didn't want to have to take hers. She felt like a walking disaster with it.

"Yes, of course," she stammered, again, still stuck in flail mode, "but--should I bring my gun too?"

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"You'd best," Gwen answered smugly. "After all, I don't want to be face to face with a razor-toothed alien and no back-up."

She knew Anna was a bit hesitant around the firearms, she she gestured towards Tosh's desk. "Grab the mobile Rift monitor and Tosh's tech pack, too. You can keep an eye on those," she added, not unkindly, and headed for the door.

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Anna made an unhappy noise but went over anyway to her own desk--she'd have preferred putting it in the vault but Jack had nixed that idea--and awkwardly put on her holster, then put her gun in said holster, then pulled on her coat and beanie hat. The gun was probably the only thing about her new job, or indeed just about anything, that could make Anna anything less than cheerful.

Then she bounced over to Tosh's desk and scooped up the monitor and the tech pack and hurried after Gwen.

"I'm still learning to read the activity," she said, a little breathlessly. "What do you think it is?"

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Gwen hesitated for a minute and headed instead for the invisible lift, hopping on it and waiting for Anna. She was eager to get her legs moving, and to get out of the Hub.

"Haven't the slightest," Gwen clipped, narrowing her eyes. "It's not big... if we're lucky it's a weevil."

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Anna shuffled as close to Gwen as possible--she still wasn't entirely familiar with where the lift began and ended, and anyway she wanted the extra room in case she dropped something, so it wouldn't fall all the way back down to the floor.

"Like that one in the cells?" she asked. "I don't see what's so lucky about that."

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Gwen smirked and looped her arm around Anna's, patting her comfortingly. The lift ascended, and she adjusted her balance. Even now, she wasn't particularly used to the strange sensation that went with using Torchwood's "back door."

"Believe me, compared to some things..." she shuttered. "But if we can round it up with no problem, it'll be something to show off to the boys. Let 'em know the new girls can handle anything they can." She tapped her foot impatiently as the lift rose.

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Anna cheered up at Gwen's statement of solidarity, and put on what she considered to be a good game face--she knew Owen didn't think she was good for anything, so doing a good job at everything had become important to her.

Meanwhile, in the city centre...

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...a man had fallen face-first into a pile of garbage bags lined up against an alley wall. It took him a while to get his bearings and orient himself, as down seemed to be up and vice versa. Finally flailing his way to the opposite alley wall, he pushed himself up into a sitting position and blinked around in confusion. This wasn't the alley he'd entered to take a shortcut home. The air not only smelled different, it felt different, and after a minute he realized why.

The hairs on the back of his neck weren't prickling anymore. He'd become used to it, after a year in his new home, and it was odd not to feel it now.

He gingerly got to his feet and peered cautiously out the mouth of the alleyway, only to recoil as a monstrosity of a motor car roared by. No, he definitely wasn't home anymore...

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Gwen hustled through the city centre, throwing a backwards glance now and again to make sure she hadn't lost Anna. She kept one hand on her gun, her eyes shifting around, looking for the slightest thing that may be out of place.

Regardless of what she would say to Anna, she really hoped it wasn't a weevil, either.

"What do we have on residual Rift energy?" she asked Anna quietly. "And has the programme been able to pinpoint the location of the spike?"

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Anna had more or less forgotten about the gun on her hip, as she was devoting all of her attention to the Rift monitor--so much so that she had nearly sent herself sprawling on the pavement at least half a dozen times while following Gwen.

"Dropping fast?" she whispered back. "Right, dropping fast. And we're really very close." She started turning in a circle to see what direction they needed to be headed in. "It says... this way." She pointed across the road.

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Gwen kept ahead of Anna, slipping her gun out of her holster and holding it steady, hoping she wouldn't need it. She sped across the road, keeping her eyes peeled for anything that looked strange.

Of course, there was the alleyway. That should have been bloody obvious.

Gwen looked back at Anna and gestured towards the alley, wondering if the Rift signs pointed in that direction.

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Anna nodded, silent now, jumpy and curious and excited all at once. She so hoped whatever it was was friendly. She'd never met a real alien before. ...well, not really. She didn't suppose the Weevil counted. It wasn't exactly intelligent.

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Gwen glanced at Anna one more time. Her gun at the ready, she whipped into the alleyway.

And came face to face with a man.

Well, gun to face, really, since she was aiming right at his head.

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The man couldn't help it. It was instinct. He let out a very loud yelp of fear and surprise.

"For the love of--please, put the gun away!" he cried, half-staggering back into the alley, whipping up his hands in the near-universal gesture of surrender. "I'm not armed, I promise! I'm not here to hurt anyone--I don't even know where "here" is!"

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Gwen ignored him, placed her hand on the man's chest and pushed him solidly to the side. She ran her eyes around the alleyway, her mind still on a razor toothed alien or a dinosaur or something, anything, that could have fallen through the Rift.

And then she looked back at the man. Well, that figures.

"Anna," she asked, keeping her eyes trained on the man, though she kept her gun not quite as close. "Are you going to tell me this bloke is where the residual Rift energy leads to?"

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"I am," Anna replied happily, looking up from the monitor, to their newfound stranger, and then to Gwen. "He doesn't look like an alien," she added, only slightly disappointed. "Do you normally get"--she took a moment to scrutinize the man's clothing--"blokes from Victorian England falling through?"

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The man was still holding his hands up; he looked very put-out by Gwen's treatment of him, and then Anna's academic evaluation of his home time, and altogether confused and off-balance.

"Oi," he protested, half-heartedly. "I'm not an alien."

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Gwen sighed. She poked him in the chest. Then she sighed again.

"Not all aliens look like, well, aliens, Anna," she said dismissively. She stared quizzically at the man. She wasn't exactly willing to dismiss him being a razor-toothed alien in disguised, but she wasn't going to make any assumptions until he had a proper, well, look-over. But he didn't seem particularly threatening.

"I'm Gwen," she said, giving him a kind smile. "This is Anna. You have any idea how you got here?"

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The man gave both Gwen and Anna a little nod of the head in greeting.

"Jack," he replied. Anna perked slightly. "And no, I haven't the faintest idea. I was simply walking home. There was this awful... I don't know how to describe it... I lost my equilibrium for a moment, and then I was face-down in the rubbish bags." He scratched his neck uneasily. "Where is 'here', exactly?"

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"Cardiff, Wales," Gwen said. She glanced over at Anna. "We have a general idea of how you got here, but you're going to have to come back with us. If you are from Victorian England, well, I'll have to say you're our first." She grinned, sensing Jack's discomfort, and patted him comfortingly on the arm.

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Jack's eyes widened, and he looked around with fresh astonishment. "Earth?" he sputtered. "B-But I can't be back here. I was told it wasn't allowed." He gave Gwen an anxious look. "If you please, what year is it?"

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Gwen cast a look at Anna and took a deep breath. "2006," she answered quietly.

Her heart went out to him then. He seemed confused - scared even. She wondered what could have happened that had caused him to be a victim of the Rift.

"What do you mean not allowed?" she asked carefully.

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