Army of One (audio story)

Army of One was the seventh release of the BBC Torchwood audio stories.

Publisher's summary
Washington DC, post-Miracle. The city has been hit by a spate of very unusual serial killings. The victims are different ages and genders and the locations vary, but each body has one thing in common – it has been reduced to a dried-up, dessicated husk.

Special Agent Lucas Avery has dealt with some tricky puzzles in his time, but this is stranger than anything he's ever encountered. His one lead is a pair of names: 'Gwen' and 'Rhys'...

For Gwen Cooper and Rhys Williams, still recovering from the recent, traumatic events that shook the world, life is about to get difficult and dangerous again. For it's not just Homeland Security on their trail, but something else – something alien, terrifying and deadly...

Plot
After withdrawing money from a Torchwood safety deposit box for Esther's sister, Rhys is captured by a Homeland Security SWAT team and Gwen drives away with Anwen, suffering from the worst of her recent headaches and having a vision of an alien attack in a Red Coffee. Agent Lucas Avery interviews Rhys about emaciated corpses found in locations that he and Gwen had recently visited before putting him with a group of other men named Rhys on a floor above one where women named Gwen are being kept.

Gwen goes to the Red Coffee and has a vision of when she, Jack, Owen, Tosh and Ianto were told by Rhys that Harwood's had been attempting to make deliveries to an office in Cardiff Bay, only for the drivers to reappear at the depot unaware of what happened, and killed the core form of the Cuckoo. After Gwen wakes up in the same building as Rhys, the Cuckoo, in possession of Sergeant Ryan, attacks Lucas and reveals that it hid parts of itself inside each member of Torchwood, meaning it has been dying incrementally as each of Gwen's teammates lost their lives. She runs.

The Cuckoo, going blind and losing its voice as it decays, goes after Gwen, but Rhys and the other Rhyses stand in the way and it collapses. Before it keels over and shatters on the floor, it sends out a psychic plea as all it wants to do is be restored and go home. Lucas, having survived the Cuckoo's attack thanks to a bulletproof vest, tells Gwen that he has given Rex a call and she decides that she wants to return home with Anwen and Rhys, who asks if the Rhyses can go back too.

Characters

 * Gwen Cooper
 * Rhys Williams
 * Anwen Williams
 * Sylvia Silano
 * Lucas Avery
 * Ryan
 * David Andrew Felton
 * Tallulah
 * Ginger Rhys
 * Reiss Burlingame

Flashback

 * Jack Harkness
 * Ianto Jones
 * Owen Harper
 * Toshiko Sato

Worldbuilding

 * Thanks to botox injections, Lucas does not sweat. This disturbed a white supremacist whom he was then able to subdue.
 * Rhys shops at Weissmuller's.
 * Lucas Avery has served reconnaissance missions in Afghanistan and Iraq.
 * Rhys asks to speak with the British Embassy.
 * Ryan used a retcon pill on Rhys.
 * Rhys says that many Americans mistake his accent for an Australian or South African one.
 * Rhys does not consider himself to be religious.

Food and beverages

 * Rhys is addicted to the ginger and cinnamon Danishes sold by Red Coffee.

Individuals

 * David Andrew Felton was an attorney for the state department.
 * Lucas calls Rex Matheson.

Pop culture

 * Rhys watches Bob the Builder with Anwen.
 * Rhys listens to the song Ace of Spades by Motörhead.
 * The interrogation room features posters of Dora the Explorer, Handy Manny and Scooby-Doo, and Fisher-Price and Buzz Lightyear toys.
 * Rhys compares Jack to Han Solo.
 * Rhys watches Countdown.

Torchwood

 * Torchwood has a safety deposit box that includes hundreds of thousands of Euros, American and Australian dollars, pounds and yen as an emergency back-up.

Continuity

 * Gwen and Rhys are still in the United States. (TV: The Blood Line)
 * Gwen is planning to give Sarah Drummond a small fortune to help make her life better. (TV: Escape to LA)
 * Esther's death and the death of Gwen's father are mentioned. (TV: The Blood Line)