m_findlow

Title: Elixir of life (Part three)
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Gwen, Ianto, Rhys, OCs
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 11,973 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Inspired by Challenge 158 - Egg at fan_flashworks
Summary: A missing antique holds the key to one of life's greatest secrets

Previously on Torchwood....

'I do have a real job, Gwen,' Rhys complained as he was bustled into the passenger side of her car. 'The trucks don't just haul themselves around Wales, you know.'

'I know, but Jack thought you'd be useful.'

'No, he wanted by me to babysit in case you got yourself in trouble.'

'Which of us can handle a gun, Rhys?' she said, annoyed more that Jack thought she needed protection, than at her husband for calling her out on it. 'Besides, don't you want to spend some quality time with your lovely wife?'

'Of course I do. I just don't think this qualifies as quality time.'

'Just shut up and get in the car,' she ordered.

'So, where are we going?' he asked as he buckled himself in.

'Catching up with a local smuggler.'

'You take me all the nice places, don't you?'

The house in Splott was grubby and overgrown. It looked about as much a front for a decorating company as it did a secret hideaway for a Kardashian.

'I though you said this bloke made a lot of money smuggling stuff?' Rhys asked.

'And he loses just as much of it with his heavy gambling habit. Some people just don't know how to quit whilst they're ahead.'

Gwen battled her way up the narrow path and thumped her fist on the door.

The man who answered the door was short, with dark olive skin and close cropped black hair and a matching beard and mustache, dressed in nothing more than a silk kimono that barely covered his chest. If he was trying to pass himself off as general human sleaze, he was doing an excellent job.

'Whatever you're selling, sweetheart, we don't want any.'

Gwen crossed her arms over before Rhys could start defending his wife. 'Funny,' she said, 'buying and selling seems to be your main hobby.'

He took another look at her and grimaced. 'Hang on, you're that bitch from Torchwood.'

'Oi, watch your language, mate,' Rhys growled.

'Alright, steady on,' he said, tugging the ties on his kimono tighter. 'What do you want? I ain't got nothing I shouldn't have, and if I did, you can't have it.'

'I want to know why you were at the Parker residence three weeks ago.'

Monty's eyes shifted between the pair of them.

'Dropping off a package, wasn't I? The old geezer wanted something I had, and Mr Piers is nothing if not accommodating to his customers,' he said, primping his lapels.

'What?'

'None of your business, darling.'

'I just made it my business, Monty. Because I get the feeling that wasn't all you delivered three weeks ago, was it?'

'Everything I sell is legit, alright?'

'Yeah, and I'm Shirley Bassey,' Rhys said.

Gwen pulled out her phone and made a show of pulling up some details on it. 'What's say I feed a little bit of your sales activity to the police. I'm sure they'd be very interested to know what you've been up to.'

Monty shifted uncomfortably, feeling his palms growing sweaty.

'I... might 'ave had another buyer for something I sold him a while back,' he confessed.

'Would that be an egg by any chance?'

He nodded his head slightly. 'Might 'ave been.'

'What else did you deliver to Parker's house three weeks ago?'

Monty hesitated.

'Tell me!' Gwen shouted. Still Monty didn't move.

'Rhys, call the police. Upload that file to their server.'

'Wait, no, alright I'll tell you,' Monty said, lunging forward, looking desperate.

'They gave to it to me.'

'Who gave what to you?'

'They said if I planted the device, they'd do the rest and I'd get my dosh.'

'They gave you something to deactivate Parker's security systems.'

'Yes. All I had to do was get it in the house.'

'Who?'

'I don't know.'

'Crap,' Rhys said, 'you know who, you're just not telling us.'

'A name, Monty,' Gwen said, holding up her phone, 'or your little wholesale empire goes up in flames, and last I checked, you still owed nearly two hundred thousand pounds to a bookie in Newport.'

'Phaw!' Rhys muttered, staring to enjoy the good cop, bad cop banter they had going.

'Intelsius.'

'What?'

'The name of the company what hired me for the job. I dunno any more than that.'

Gwen gave Monty one last look before turning away, Rhys close on her heels.

'A pleasure, Mr Piers.'

He shuffled from one terrycloth slipper to the other. 'What about that thing you said about the police and all?'

'I'd be very careful about what you sell from now on if I were you,' she replied.

As they powered back towards Wales, Jack spared a glance at his companion, who still had the egg carefully cushioned in his lap, and issuing strict instructions to Jack to drive as carefully as possible. That meant no unnecessary changing of lanes, no swerving, and no sudden braking because he was tailgating the car in front.

'Do you feel any different?' Jack asked.

'What do you mean?'

'Well, I just thought that if this is the same as Parker's egg, and it's got some kind of healing energy...' he trailed off.

'And you think that because you're immortal it won't make any difference to you?'

He shrugged. 'Something like that.'

'Then no, I don't feel any different. Not that I think I'm in need of healing, which is a good thing, I think.' He eyed the egg with a modicum of suspicion. 'In any case, I don't think we should be testing out the theory using me as the guinea pig.'

'I wasn't suggesting grievous bodily harm! I was thinking more like a paper cut or something.'

'You want me to cut myself with a piece of paper and see if it fixes me?'

'Okay, so it sounds a little bit crazy when you say it like that.'

'That's because it is a little bit crazy. How about we just wait until we get back to the hub and test it with some proper equipment?'

'I thought I had the right tools for the job right here,' Jack joked.

'More like the right fools for the job,' he threw back. 'Honestly, I wonder about you sometimes.'

Back at the hub, Gwen had pulled up as much information on Intelsius Corporation as she could, which wasn't much. They had an inoffensive website that claimed them to be at the forefront of medical research, with over two hundred staff, but no press releases, no advertising, no testimonies, and from what they could gather, no actual saleable products or services to come out of the facility in the past three years.

'Well, at least that confirms one thing for us,' Jack said.

'What's that?' Gwen asked,

'If a medical research company bought it, then we were right to believe Parker's claims that it was somehow healing him. Jack grabbed the Faberge egg, opening it and reaching in.

'Jack, please don't...' Ianto implored.

He plucked out the peach coloured jewel.

'...break the egg,' he finished.

Jack held the jewel aloft, up towards the light and stared at it.

'What else did we find out about the actual break in?' he asked, letting the light play across his face as the jewel glinted.

'Not much,' Gwen said. 'All Monty would say is that they made him smuggle in a device that would help them steal it.'

'Probably something to knock out the security systems. Wouldn't take anything particularly high tech,' Ianto added.

'They'd still need to know the password to his personal safe, and the location,' she replied.

'Believe me, that kind of safe isn't hard to crack,' Jack said. 'He'd have left fingerprints all over it. Any good safe cracker could be in and out in under five minutes with the egg. Even I know what his passcode is now.'

'What?'

'Prince of Wales.'

Ianto rolled his eyes. 'God help us.'

'Hang on,' Gwen said, flipping through some of the pages on her desk. 'This says that two years ago, Intelsius bought joint proprietary rights to some classified medical research material, as well as some prototype designs from a tech company based in Birmingham.'

'Joint with who?'

'The Pharm.'

Ianto frowned. 'I though we deleted everything they had?'

'Not before they'd sold some of it on, judging by these dates,' she said, consulting the files.

'Where do we find this place?' Jack asked.

'Their research lab has a Swansea address, but the registered address with Companies House is right here in Cardiff.'

'Okay, Gwen, you and Ianto head out to Swansea. I'll go check out the registered address.'

Continues in part four...