Torchwood: Origins (1)

In my attempts to research the origins of Arven and his team, of Torchwood's Irish outpost, I have encountered many hurdles. Information on their operations is limited at best, gleamed only from my tireless dedication to journalism. I have already outlined one of their earliest known cases: That business with the Banshee. While we may all be familiar with the fallout from their more recent exploits, the origins of the team have been a mystery... Who are these people? Why are they defending us? Why do we need defending? How did they become experts of the extraterrestrial? How did they build an entire secret base in Cork City?

For the first time, I have found a lead! I have accessed a written log from Arven himself. While it doesn't answer questions about the team, it seems to begin to answer why he chose this career path. I present this log to you, unedited and unchanged.

My name is Arven, and I've never been very good at writing about myself. Or writing in general, really. Or anything in general. Except maths. I've always had a knack for maths. So here I am, a nerd doing science in college, with a plethora of geeky passions and paraphernalia. Side note: Passions and paraphernalia would be an excellent title for a steamy 50 Shades type novel.

Sorry, I've gotten sidetracked a little. Tends to happen, I've always had my head in the clouds; in the past or the future, rarely in the present. Always thinking of other places and other times, fictional and personal. Of who I was and who I might be, never quite at ease with either, and certainly never happy with who I am! Never living in the moment; always worrying about the moment, until it happens, then over analysing it after the fact. Always feeling like I didn't fit in, because I didn't know myself. Like a key that could fit in any lock but make none turn.

All that changed one fateful day, in July. Was that clichéd? Nevermind. I was always a fan of science fiction and fantasy, of other worlds and other times, always looking for escapism, beyond my own pitiful self, looking for more than this. Little did I know I'd actually find it, in my living room! I was moping around the house, fresh from a recent break-up, and still reeling in emotional freefall. Because I was somewhat preoccupied with emoting, I initially failed to notice the wheezing, groaning cry of space and time being forced apart by unimaginable power. I couldn't fail to notice the sudden breeze picking up indoors, letters and papers now fluttering across the room. It was impossible to miss the unsettling apparition of a large blue box in the corner. It stood a little over two metres tall, and had the words 'Police Public Call Box' in illuminated signage on top. Then, I wondered why I was bothering with such trivial details when this thing had emerged from the ether! Wasn't that the priority here?!

So caught up in my repose, I failed to acknowledge the tall man in the sharp, blue, pinstriped suit as he emerged from the box.
"Nikki, I've returned! Told you I'd be back to drop off your earthquake device. See? Sorry for running out on you, but the Rutans really are..."
The man paused in his soliloquy, suddenly realising he was not where he intended to be. Here was a man who operated so fast, it took his senses several seconds to board his train of thought. The man stared at me, inquisitively. I stared at him, blankly. Nothing so far in my life had prepared me for this situation.
"You're not Nicolai Tesla..." the man said, neither of us sure if it was a statement or a question. I managed to summon the wherewithal to shake my head.
"Oh, Nevermind then! Allons-y!" exclaimed the man, as he spun on his heels, and strode with purpose back into his box.

As the door swung shut behind him, I breathed a sigh of relief. He was gone, hopefully he'd take his box away too, and I could go back to not witnessing impossible materialisations. As if to spite me, the doors burst open again, and the man's face beamed out at me, with his spiked hair leading the charge.
"Hold on. I want to talk about your eyes." he announced, face morphing into a look of concern and confusion, like someone questioning if they got an earlier crossword answer wrong when a later answer doesn't fit.
"My eyes?" I asked, voice cracking slightly. I was having a bad day before the impossible crashed into my life, and I had no patience for this nonsense.
"Yeah, your eyes", the man insisted.
"But what about Nicolai Tesla?" I asked, somehow just going along with the broken logic of the scenario.
"Oh, old news, doesn't matter" replied the man, tossing the fragile device over his shoulder with the kind of practised casualness that meant it just happened to land in his box, atop a balled up jacket. At the time, my brain failed to realise that the box seemed far deeper than the bounds of my house could allow.

"Look at me, let me see your eyes." The man said, forcibly but not impolitely, spoken as if by a busy doctor who didn't have time to lose. It was only later I realised how apt that image was. He grasped my chin, using it to manipulate my face so he could inspect me at multiple angles. I let him, I really had no idea how to react any more. I wasn't even surprised when he took out a small buzzing pen like object with a blue light at the end and shone it into my pupils one at a time.

At this point, the sheer lunacy of my situation hit me, like a really big stick with the word 'weird' written in crayon on the side. I recoiled from the incongruity of a non Euclidean cube appearing in my house, and let out a squawking growl that perfectly encapsulated my mood. It's hard to describe in words, but imagine the sound made by an anxious whale happening across a mouse struggling to remove a splinter from its paw.

Sensing my discomfort and disorientation, the man stood backwards, and drew a sharp breath through his teeth.
"Ok, I'd better start from the beginning. Hello, I'm The Doctor! I'm a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, in the constellation of Kasterbrous and you've had one hell of a mental buffer!"
"Are you calling me mental?"
"No, well no more than any of the rest of us anyway. It's your eyes, they're glowing. A sort of orange colour."
suffice to say, I didn't believe him.
"Of course they're not. I'm looking at a mirror right no..."
At that, I turned to stare at my reflection in the mirror hanging over the mantle, and stopped speaking aloud, lips still flopping aimlessly like a dying fish. My eyes were burning with a deep orange glow, like portals to some hellscape, little tendrils of energy emerging from my sockets like hungry worms, wisping away into the ether.

"It's the effect of Artron energy, you're brimming with it" The Doctor explained, resting a calming hand on my shoulder. "And it's been with you for a number of years, if I'm estimating properly."
"But, that can't be right. Surely I would have noticed this before you pointed it out."
"Well, humans can be particularly blind of the obvious" he joked, then added "I think it's been lying dormant in your system, and has been awoken by the presence of the TARDIS. That's my ship by the way. It's emanates Artron energy, byproduct of the time travel."
I let that particular comment slide.
"Why would someone fill me up with Artron energy? It's hardly a common practical joke!"
"Dunno. Could be as a trap for me, or a result of temporal incursion in your timestream"

I looked into The Doctor's eyes, and I realised something. He was not the thirty year old man he appeared. His eyes spoke of an incredible age, those eyes had seen so many experiences, so much joy, so much pain. He was wrestling with a decision.

"I don't know what's been done to you, but whatever it is, it's not good. I haven't traveled with anyone for a while now, not since Donna.. The people who travel with me tend to get hurt, or die, or... I thought it wasn't worth it. I travel alone now. Nobody to lose that way."

His eyes watered, imperceptibly, as he spoke of tragedy and loss. Here was a man who should not be alone, I realised. A man who needs companions.

"However, I need to figure out who did this to you. So, I ask you: Will you travel with me until we can figure this out?"
"Where would we go?"
"Oh, here and there. All of time and space at our disposal, anywhere, anywhen. Your choice."

How could I refuse an offer like that? To see more than this. To experience the dreams and fantasies I had spent my life craving. My horizons stood infinitely broad in front of me. I had to say yes.