Doctor Who - Downtime Part 15

That was Anthony now. The beat went on, but Danny managed to career against the wall and slither to a halt in a doorway. It was a shock to realize that the beat wasn't feeding directly into his brain.

A bouncy jingle burst out of the speaker above his head.

Danny eased open the door a crack and peered inside.

' If you can't get your head round life, no ha.s.sle. There's If you can't get your head round life, no ha.s.sle. There's over 300 different courses here at New World. So there's got over 300 different courses here at New World. So there's got to be a right one for you. to be a right one for you. ' '

The room inside hummed: a deep growl like the chanting of Tibetan monks. It was the meditation hour. Row upon row of desks reached to the back of the computer room. Each desk had a terminal and at each terminal sat a Chilly, cap and headphones on, intent on his or her input. All neat rows of neat little automatic people. All with identical graphic patterns swirling on neat little screens.

Danny shuddered. His fingers were stinging where the web had clung on. With one concerted movement, every student in the room turned to stare at the crack in the doorway. Their eyes were ice cold, unseeing.

Danny ducked back and started to run again. He reached a stairway and saw two Chillys making their way up. He dodged back and headed for the fire escape.

Outside, he was away from the heat. He began to clatter down the corkscrew escape route. Halfway down, he heard a shout.

Christopher Rice was standing on one of the overhead walkways that linked the New World buildings, pointing up across the gap at the fire escape. From Danny's vantage point, he could see Chillys converging from all directions. Above him, there was the clatter of descending footsteps.

Alarms started to jangle. Alarms with a cosmic disco heartbeat. Danny reached the foot of the escape and started to belt along the concrete walkways.

Twice he faced them head on, but he knew the system. He could cut corners, jump levels, clamber across roofs, running them in circles until they dropped and he got maximum points.

He careered another junction and skidded to a halt. Gliding out of a side turning came a small silvered globe. It echoed the alarm beat with its high staccato bleeps. It paused and then changed direction, seeming to glide rather than roll towards him.

Danny panicked. He started to backtrack, desperate to reach a stair up to the next walkway before the pursuing Chillys.

This wasn't what he had planned. He was going to be sandwiched. Already there were more of the students gathering behind the gliding sphere, content to follow as its entourage.

Danny tore at a group of bikes parked by the stairwell, scattering them across the walkway, blocking the sphere's path. He started to run up the steps, heading for the ramps that lead to the university generator rooms. Behind him, the globe reached the scattered bikes and began to weave to and fro, momentarily confused by the tangle of metal. The Chillys began to clear a path for the sphere.

There was no one on the next level up and Danny, his legs already giving out, made for the generator service area. He need only go a little higher to reach the feeder ramps and then down away off campus. But G.o.d only knew how he was going to find the Brigadier.

He struggled up to the crest of the walkway on what felt like his last breath and looked down towards freedom. A group of Chillys were heading up towards him. He looked back and saw more emerging from the stairwell. He ran to the edge and looked over. It was high. There was nowhere to run.

Both groups stopped short, one at either side of him. They waited as if afraid to upset the balance of which he was the pivot. The beat had stopped, but he could still hear from somewhere the high repeating pips of the sphere. There was a disturbance on the stairwell side and Christopher came pus.h.i.+ng through the Chillys. He advanced, all cool smarm.

'Come back, Daniel. Nothing to be afraid of.'

Danny nearly laughed, but it choked in his throat.

Christopher was coming closer. Danny climbed up onto the parapet. The ground below him swayed.

'Come on, Daniel. We're here to help you. You were chosen.'

The Chillys' fixed stare unnerved him. It was like invisible hands holding him there on the edge. He braced himself against it. 'It's a sham! The whole thing! It'll get you all!'

Christopher seemed almost nonchalant. 'It already has you you, Daniel.'

Behind him, the Chillys parted and the sphere glided, bleeping hungrily, through the gap.

'Daniel the Devious,' grinned Christopher and stepped back for the sphere to approach. The object began to rock back and forth as if gathering power for a sudden leap at its prey.

Danny looked down in despair. Tears were gathering on the lower rims of his gla.s.ses. He felt a new rage stinging and burning up inside him. He didn't want to finish it here.

'Go on then,' suggested Christopher. 'There's no escape.

Not even that way.'

Danny flung his arms out wide and threw himself into the air.

He felt the world rus.h.i.+ng up and wind hitting him, whistling between his fingers. Everything was whirling past in a maelstrom of concrete and sky and branches. And somewhere he heard a voice, her voice, calling his name.

' Daniel. Daniel. ' '

The air seemed to cradle him and carry him. The rus.h.i.+ng fall became a cus.h.i.+oned swoop. Like the dreams of projection, like surfing, like flying. The ground no longer sprang up to smash him, but slid beneath him as he ploughed down into leaves and brown-smelling earth and darkness.

Game over.

The sphere jumped up onto the parapet, weaving back and forth on the edge. Beside it, Christopher, with Chillys gathering around him, stared down into the depths. There was no sign of the body.

The Marketing Facilitator watched the silver globe. Even in defeat it was impressive, he thought, this mobile manifestation of the New World computer. And now it was having its own little temper tantrum. That's how advanced it was.

Frighteningly advanced. Maybe a little possessive too, but then it had power to protect. It was already rewriting its own systems, outstripping anything humans could do. So he must stay close to the power. He had his contacts outside, that was why it needed him. But he must come closer, closer. No one else must be as close. He must make himself invaluable. Only Victoria stood in the way. And her beloved Chancellor, always so conspicuous by his absence. And this endless search for something the computer needed so desperately. This indefinable Locus Locus, whatever that was, or the elusive Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. But he was happy to deal with that too. It was an expensive task, but Victoria was always ready to sign blank cheques for anything he needed. Her purse was the most important a.s.set they had and it would be suicide to get rid of her just yet.

10.

By the Sea he wind was freshening, whirling little sand devils out of T the dunes and across the wide, wild expanse of the beach.

The tide had dragged the sea far off into the distance. It left a flat exposed area of grey, rippled mud broken only by the occasional pool in which bits of upside-down sky had got trapped.

Somewhere a telephone was trilling. It mingled with the jaunty oompah oompah of a distant military band. If there had once been bathing machines, they had all been dragged away by the tides of time. of a distant military band. If there had once been bathing machines, they had all been dragged away by the tides of time.

From the dunes, the Brigadier, clad in his favourite tweed jacket and cap, surveyed the beach with a look of satisfaction.

In the distance, he could make out a group of blazered schoolboys or were they uniformed squaddies? kicking a ball about. He drained the cup of tea he was carrying and started down onto the beach.

The air was very bracing here. It took him back to his own childhood visits to the seaside long family walks and building complex strategic fortifications in the sand that never withstood the advancing forces of the smallest waves.

He stopped to look at a large piece of flotsam, a London Underground sign for Piccadilly Circus, that lay half sunken in a pool surrounded by more trapped bits of upside-down cloud.

He sniffed, rather appalled at the stuff that got dumped overboard these days. He was pleased, however, to find that his cup was replenished with tea once again and drank it down smartly.

Dark stormclouds were building on the horizon. The Brigadier was sure that somewhere that phone was ringing again. Nearby, a small boy with matted curly hair was building a pyramid out of sand.

The Brigadier smiled indulgently. There was a sudden violent animal roar and he ducked, spilling the remains of his tea, as a shadow swooped in low over him. There was nothing in the sky, but when he looked down at the sand, he saw a monstrous footprint.

Distant thunder grumbled out to sea. The Brigadier crouched and ran his leather-gloved hand across the contours.

The footprint had four ma.s.sively clawed toes. It took him back. The roar of lumbering brutish machines echoing through pitch-black Underground tunnels. Luminous heaving web, dead men walking and the roar of the angry Yeti. It dragged him right back to the beginning.

He stood up, alert, eyes darting round for danger, his hand pulling his revolver from inside his UNIT uniform.

There was nothing he could see. The beach was suddenly deserted, and the sand all around him was , blemished only by the single clawed footprint.

Convinced that there was no immediate threat, he tried to replace his revolver in its holster and found that he was spilling tea down his tweed jacket. He shrugged off his foolishness and set off on his const.i.tutional with a spring in his step. He wasn't sure what he was making for. It didn't really seem to matter, even when he realized that in the unblemished sand he had left no footprints of his own at all.

He headed down towards the sea and gazed out across the breakers as they thundered out on the open water. By the time they reached the sh.o.r.e, they had turned to submissive little ripples at his feet. A lone seabird, its head capped with blue, was wheeling and swooping above the tumult. Its cry was a lonely protest against the bl.u.s.tering wind. The UNIT symbol was emblazoned on its khaki wings.

Distant thunder again. A tiny spark of light flickered repeatedly on the horizon. A lighthouse or lights.h.i.+p or guttering star, he decided. He turned and began to walk back inland.

There was a dark figure on the dunes, too far away to be clearly defined. It seemed to change shape, expanding and shrinking without altering position. Even at this distance, he could sense its fierce scrutiny. He headed towards it.

'Sir? Please, sir?' said a voice at his shoulder. A moon-faced young man in his mid to late teens was watching him intently. He was dressed in a scruffy Brendon blazer. The Brigadier grappled for a name.

'Hinton? Good Lord. What are you doing here?'

The boy had sand in his gelled hair. 'Hinton, D. A., sir.

School House '91.'

'Yes, of course.' The Brigadier glanced back at the dunes, but the figure had vanished. He studied the boy instead, trawling his mind for memories. 'It must be a good three years since you got yourself expelled.'

'Yes, sir,' Hinton admitted sheepishly. 'But I need to talk to you now, sir. It's important.'

The Brigadier sighed a reflex reaction. Whenever boys wanted advice, he was always in the thick of marking or writing reports. 'Well, make it snappy then.' He was relieved to find that they were already sitting in deckchairs. He sipped his tea while Hinton looked awkward and ummed and ahed round the point. The way the wretched boy always behaved when he was in trouble. It had been exactly the same three years ago. It took him back.

'Frankly, Hinton, I don't know how you could throw it all away. You excel at maths and computer work.'

The boy pulled a long face. 'The headmaster says I'm "a disruptive influence", but it wasn't deliberate, sir.'

'No more than losing your CCF kit or skiving off games,'

observed the Brigadier. 'This occult nonsense. Dabbling in black magic is a dangerous business.'

'It was a seance, sir. Not black magic, or drugs.'

'No?'

'I've done it loads of times. I suppose it's a gift.'

'You have no idea what you're playing with.'

Hinton grinned. 'No, sir. Not natural, is it?' As if realizing his impertinence, he gazed wistfully out to sea. 'Do you have family, sir?'

Lethbridge-Stewart gave him a weary and withering look.

Somewhere he thought he heard a phone trilling. He glanced round at the beach. The shape on the dunes had reappeared. It was closer and he could see that its undefined form was caused by a dark cloak that billowed in the wind around the hooded figure.

'You realize we're under surveillance,' he said, but the wretched boy's deckchair was empty. He stood to face the distant figure and once again felt a power emanating from its presence. It was a challenge, he was certain of that. He stood firm and defied it.

The figure did not move. Two tiny figures on an empty beach, buffeted by a wind that blew in from a sea, carrying memories from the past or dreams of the future. Two defiant wills locking horns in a vying for power.

The Brigadier was listening to words torn by the wind.

' Where is the Locus? Where is the Locus? ' The whispering of a woman or siren. ' The whispering of a woman or siren.

'Who are you?' he barked.

The surge of power from the figure grew in strength.

Bracing himself, he heard the roar of a wild beast again. The figure seemed to split as a second ma.s.sive shape rose and strode out of the first.

'Yeti,' he muttered and reached again into his military tunic for his gun. He pulled his hand out in disgust. Web was clinging to his fingers.

The power surge had begun to obliterate everything else. It funnelled at him, swirling round him like blown sand. He was physically forcing against it. The beach was starting to tilt top-heavy towards him. It was rearing above him, tumbling in. He could not bear the weight alone. Sand and light were choking into his face. A high-pitched silvery note whistling in his head like a cord pulling him down, down, down...

The television flickered balefully in the corner. Its empty, white screen had become a monstrous eye, a cyclops that fed on the minds of its subservient prey. It crouched, transmitting nothing yet still horribly active, emitting a continuous high tone of triumph over its prostrate victim.