Risk Assessment by James Goss Page B

thundered down around her, Agnes took one last, grim look around, before fixing on the flopping wet puppet of the old woman. And, just for a second, she looked worried. And then she jumped into the tunnel.
    Outside, Ianto and Gwen were herding the survivors into ambulances.
    To Jack’s eyes, the scene was startling. Squatting over the entire building was a vast black mass, as rich and sticky as toffee. It seemed to roar, but that was simply the sound of the girders rent beneath it.
    It was surrounded by police cars and ambulances; there was even a fire engine, of all things, hosing it down. Several camera crews filmed the proceedings under the shifting blue lights of the sirens.
    For a second, Jack just took in the absurdity of the scene – after all these days of worry, the end of the world was happening, and the Apocalypse wasn’t a sky of fire and a boiling sea with hordes of hellspawn tearing through a rain of burning coals – instead it began with the municipal authorities hosing down a giant bin liner. He smiled, and idly checked out a passing fireman.
    Ianto came running up to him, and, making sure that Agnes wasn’t looking, hugged him. Jack, careless, seized his cheeks and kissed him. Ianto squirmed away uneasily. ‘Not on duty, Captain,’ he whispered.
    ‘Tut,’ said Jack fondly as Ianto straightened his tie. ‘Thank you.’
    Ianto looked bashful. ‘I’m sorry it took so long. It was almost impossible to get a fix on you through that. . . thing. We tried digging the tunnel through it, but the cutting equipment wouldn’t touch it. It’s like the thing’s got a force field. So I had to go down.’
    Jack started to say something.
    ‘You did well, Mr Jones,’ said Agnes. She’d materialised behind them almost silently and stood there, actually smiling as she picked dirt from her gloves. ‘A most timely rescue.’ She grinned at him and patted him on the shoulder.
    Ianto grew visibly.
    She then turned to survey the mayhem around them. ‘Goodness me,’ she sighed. ‘What a mess.’
    ‘All my fault?’ asked Jack.
    ‘Oh yes,’ said Agnes with the tone of an eternally patient, eternally disappointed teacher. ‘But we shall have to see what we can do. Mrs Cooper!’
    Gwen broke away from complicated discussions with three policemen, a fire sergeant and a traffic warden and came running over. She looked stressed, but thoroughly in charge.
    Agnes looked around her and drew herself up. ‘We shall have to have a quick field conference everyone. Now, we’ve fallen at the first gate and clearly the anticipated alien threat has not been prevented. Secondly, we have been unable to contain the situation without the help of civil authorities. Thirdly, those oiks over there savour of Her Majesty’s Press, so we can assume that public knowledge of this alien menace will hit the streets within days. And, fourthly and finally, I rather fear we shall be spared public disgrace, as, given that creature’s exponential rate of growth, I predict that it will have spread all the way to Bedfordshire by next week and the continent in a fortnight. The fate of the world, is, very literally, in our hands.’ Agnes beamed and then cocked an eyebrow at Jack. ‘And I believe you said, only a short while ago, “Crisis? What crisis?” Shame on you, Harkness.’
    ‘So what do we do?’ said Gwen, sensing Jack’s rigid frame.
    Agnes placed her hands on her hips and waved away an approaching camera crew. ‘Mrs Cooper, please continue the excellent civil liaison work that you’ve been undertaking. The rest of us have a sample of that creature which we shall examine in the Hub. We’ll be back as soon as we can.’
    Back at the Hub, Agnes, Jack and Ianto stared at the open cash box. Inside, the fragment of the Vam had expanded to fill the tin, which was starting to rattle slightly. Already the sides of the tin were melting. They’d rapidly transferred it to a containment field.
    Jack set up a chemical analysis while Agnes