“Move ’em back,” they said. “Leave it safe.” “Special access,” they said.
Gwen Cooper: For who?
Torchwood.
Gwen: Who’s Torchwood?
PC Andy Davidson: Special Ops or something. about the coffee. Is that hot?
Gwen: Ah yeah, have it. But they’re not allowed in there. They could contaminate the evidence and all sorts. I mean how can they—
PC Andy: Don’t ask me. There’s no procedure any more. It’s a disgrace.
Captain Jack Harkness: Contraceptives in the rain. I love this planet. Still, at least I won’t get pregnant. I’m never doing that again.
John: Who are you?
Jack: Tell me, what was it like when you died? What did you see? John, tell me what you saw.
Suzie Costello: Ten seconds.
John: Nothing. I saw nothing. Oh my god, there’s nothing.
Jack: We told the last corpse he was injured. He wasted the whole two minutes screaming for an ambulance. Maybe there’s a no right way of doing it. looking up at Gwen in the parking ramp. What do you think?
Gwen: But those people last night—the people in the car. Who were they? What’s Torchwood?
PC Andy: ‘Don’t know. Special Ops.
Gwen: Yeah, but what does that mean?
PC Andy: Bet you ten quid they’re DNA specialists. It’s all DNA these days. Like that CSI bollocks. CSI: Cardiff, I’d like to see that. They’d be measuring the velocity of a kebab.
Yvonne: No sign of Captain Jack Harkness.
Gwen: Did you search outside Cardiff?
Yvonne: No, that never even occurred to me. Of course I did. I went nationwide. There’s about 15 Jacks and Johns with that surname. None of them’s a Captain.
Gwen: Suppose he could have made it up.
Yvonne: The only Captain Jack Harkness on record is American.
Gwen: That’s it—he’s American.
Yvonne: Which you forgot to tell me.
Gwen: So who is he?
Yvonne: American volunteer. Royal Air Force. RAF Squadron. Except he disappeared. Vanished off the records, and presumed dead.
Gwen: When was that?
Yvonne: 1941 at the height of the Blitz. On the morning of January 21, 1941, Captain Jack Harkness failed to report for duty. Never seen again until now. What’s going on, Gwen? You seeing ghosts?
Owen Harper: I can’t do this. I’m sorry. I’m rubbish, I give up.
Toshiko Sato: He set me off.
Suzie Costello: Well that lasted no point two seconds.
Owen Harper: Hm. She’s actually carrying pizza.
Jack: Come on! She was going to say, “Here’s your pizza.” And I was going to
say, “How much?”. And she says, “Oh whatever, 20 quid.” And I say, “Oo, I don’t have any money.” I was working on a punch line. I hadn’t got there, but it would’ve been good.
Gwen: Here’s your pizza. I think I’d better go.
Jack: I think we’ve gone past that stage.
Suzie Costello: You must have been freezing out there. How long were you walking ’round? Three hours?
Gwen: You could see me?
Suzie: Mm hm.
Jack: And before we go any further, who the hell goes around ordering pizza under the name of Torchwood?
Owen: Uh, yeah. That would be me. Sorry, I’m a twat.
Gwen: Who are you?
Jack: Torchwood.
Gwen: What’s Torchwood?
Jack: This is Torchwood.
Jack: It’s called a Weevil. Or at least we call them Weevils. We don’t know their real name because they’re not too good at communicating. But we’ve got a couple hundred of them in the city, living in the sewers, feeding off the— well. it’s the sewers. You can guess.
Jack: Owen Harper, Gwen Cooper.
Owen: Dr. Owen Harper, thank you.
Jack: Toshiko Sato, computer genius. Suzie Costello. She’s second-in-command. And this is Ianto Jones. Ianto cleans up after us and and gets us everywhere on time.
Ianto: I do my best.
Jack: And looks good in a suit.
Gwen: I’m getting tired of following you.
Jack: No you’re not. And you never will.
Invisible lift sounds better.
Jack: That is so Welsh.
Gwen: What is?
Jack: I show you something fantastic, you find fault.
Gwen: The thing is I just don’t understand—
Jack: No, I’ll tell you what I don’t understand. You’re going to rattle on with that “How can this be true?” kind of shtick. What’s it going to take for you people? If you want evidence of aliens, how about that great big spaceship hovering over London on Christmas Day? What about the battle of Canary Wharf? A Cyberman in every home.
Gwen: My boyfriend says it’s like a sort of terrorism. Like they put drugs in the water supplies. Psychotropic drugs. Causing mass hallucinations and stuff.
Jack: Yeah well, your boyfriend is stupid.
Gwen: Oh, you’ve met him.
Gwen: And who are you then?
Jack: Captain Jack Harkness.
Gwen: I did some research. And there’s only one Captain Jack Harkness on record. And he disappeared in 1941.
Jack: Well that couldn’t be me. Could it?
Jack: We don’t just catch aliens. We scavenge the stuff they leave behind, find ways of using it. arming the human race for the future. The twenty-first century is when it all changes. And you’ve got to be ready.
Gwen: But who’s in charge of you? Is it the government or what?
Jack: We’re separate from the police, outside the government, beyond the United Nations. Because if one power got ‘hold of this stuff they could use it for their own purposes.
Gwen: But so could you.
Jack: All alien technology stays on the base. No one’s allowed to take anything outside.
Gwen: So go on then. How the hell did you end up in Cardiff?
Jack: This is Torchwood Three. Torchwood One was London—destroyed in the battle. Torchwood Two is an office in Glasgow—a very strange man. Torchwood Three, Cardiff. Torchwood Four has kinda gone missing but we’ll find it one day.
Gwen: So you just fancied Cardiff?
Jack: There’s a rift in space and time running right through the city.
Gwen: …If you let me go, I’ve got a duty. I can tell them what that does. Because that glove could help us.
Jack: If you remember.
Gwen: What do you mean?
Jack: How’s your drink?
Gwen: Have you poisoned me?
Jack: Don’t be so dramatic. It’s an amnesia pill. My own recipe. With a touch of denial and a dash of retcon. Wake up tomorrow morning, you’ll have forgot everything about Torchwood. Worse still, you’ll have forgotten me. Which is kind of tragic.
Gwen: You bastard!
Jack: Language. Nice knowing you, Gwen Cooper.
Jack: You were right. We could do more to help. What do you think, do you want to join up?
Gwen: Yeah. I do. Yes.