System Shock Part 3

28.Johanna walked slowly across to the burning wreckage, ignoring the heat. Lewis caught her up as she craned forward to see into the front of the car. He was holding the tracer, but made no attempt to switch it on.

'He got the disc. We have to get it out of there.'

'No way.'

Lewis pulled her round to look at him. 'I said, he got the disc.'

'I heard. But you won't get it out of there.'

He stared into the flames for a while. 'Maybe it will survive.

If not, we can get another copy.'

Slake laughed a dry snort of humour. Her head swayed slightly as she said: 'You won't get it out of there because it's not in the car.'

Lewis looked at her, his eyebrows tightening into a frown.

'And neither is Sutcliffe.' She pointed at the driver's window.

The flames were dying down slightly and the empty seat was clearly visible. 'Which makes things more complicated.'

Lewis switched on the tracer and checked the readings. The flick of his eyes away from the burning car betrayed the device's message. 'We have to get it back. Or destroy it.'

Johanna Slake smiled. The angular features of her face caught the flickering of the fire, threw bizarre shadows across the road as her head swayed. 'No problem,' she said quietly and took the tracer from him. It was a small device, about the size of a typical television remote control. Its liquid crystal display showed a street map of the local area. A small marker symbol flashed its way along a street two blocks away.

Sutcliffe was sure he wasn't being followed. He was outside a phone box, hand on the door about to push it open when the sound of the explosion reached him. It froze him for a second.

He s.n.a.t.c.hed his hand away from the door, staring nervously at the telephone inside for a few moments. Then he turned and ran.

He ran for a long time, not sure exactly where he was or where he was going. He had ditched his cellular phone a week ago, that was an obvious trap. But he had to make contact had to find a safe way to call in. Lewis and Slake would be 29 after him soon, if they weren't already might even know where to wait for him. It was too dangerous to make physical contact, he had to call in.

The noise reached him as he rounded the corner. There was a pub further along the street. He could see the light spilling out of it, hear the gla.s.ses c.h.i.n.king and the jukebox blaring.

Familiarity, light, and people.

He stumbled against the door, almost laughing with relief as well as humour at the name on the sign swinging above him.

The door crashed open, banging noisily against the table inside. There was a lull in the conversation as he staggered across to the bar and leaned heavy and breathless against it.

The spotty young barman made a point of serving a man at the other end of the bar and the noise picked up again. Camilla's Camilla's Little Secret Little Secret continued the melody of continued the melody of Tantalising Eyes Tantalising Eyes without comment. without comment.

'Yes, sir?' The barman had reached him at last and sounded like he thought 'sir' was spelled 'cur'.

Sutcliffe rattled some change on to the bar. A ten pence piece rolled into a drip mat and spun to a halt. 'Orange juice.'

'Orange juice?' The youth seemed surprised. He obviously had Sutcliffe down as a drunk. 'Anything in it?' He sounded disappointed.

'Yes. Ice.'

As the barman shook the bottle of Britvic, Sutcliffe searched his pockets. Loose change; keys; wallet. Eventually he found a biro. He looked round for paper. He reached across the bar for the duplicate pad they used to take the food orders and tore off the top sheet. It was numbered 17.

'Hey!' His drink had arrived. 'Order food at the other end of the bar.'

'It's okay I just want the paper.'

The barman looked dubious and scooped up most of the coins Sutcliffe had produced. He was about to move off when Sutcliffe grabbed his shoulder.

'Do you have a phone?'

'Steady on,' he shook off Sutcliffe's grip.

'Do you have a phone?' Sutcliffe repeated urgently.

30.'Yeah by the door to the toilets.' He pointed across the room.

'And is it a tone phone?'

'What?' A woman further along, waiting to be served, tapped her purse impatiently on the top of the bar. 'Look, I haven't a clue. Probably. Okay?' He shook his head and moved along.

'Sorry to keep you ...'

The door opened again. Sutcliffe felt the draught on the back of his neck, making the hairs stand on end. He turned instinctively, jamming the paper and pen into a pocket as he did so.

Johanna Slake stood in the doorway. The orange light from the street lit her from behind, seemed almost to emanate from her as she stepped into the pub. She let the door swing to, shutting out the street so that she seemed to loom even closer as the light source s.h.i.+fted. She was smiling, head scanning gently from side to side like a predator.

Sutcliffe tried to back away, but he was already against the bar. Instead he edged round it, colliding with the couple next to him, grunting an apology, fumbling in his jacket. Johanna took a step towards him, and he turned and ran colliding with a table, scattering people and drinks everywhere. Someone was shouting as he stumbled towards the back door of the pub. The couple at the table by the door half stood as he approached as surprised as everyone else. Sutcliffe pulled tables over and scattered gla.s.ses behind him as he went, hoping desperately to slow her down and buy a few precious moments.

As he reached the door at last he turned and looked back.

There was a trail of devastation across the bar: tables, chairs, gla.s.ses and ashtrays on the floor. People were starting to crowd towards him, forming a human wall between himself and Johanna. But even as he began to feel he might yet escape, several people spun out of the group, staggering across the room in all directions. Johanna pushed effortlessly through the small crowd, heading straight for him without heed of the debris. Tables crashed out of her way, chairs and stools were hurled aside, and gla.s.ses shattered underfoot.

31.Sutcliffe turned to make his escape. But the tall man who had been sitting by the exit was now blocking it. Sutcliffe barged him aside, threw open the door and fled into the night.

He was tired and he was desperate. Despite doubling back, despite checking at every turn, despite diving into a pub at random, she had found him. He had perhaps thirty seconds lead, depending on whether the tall man by the door managed to slow her down at all. Would he even try?

Sutcliffe instinctively glanced at his watch, measuring off the seconds.

He was staggering now, out of breath. He leaned against the plywood wall which ran makes.h.i.+ft beside the pavement. His hand inched along it ahead of his wheezing body. And found a crack a hinged line up the wall. A padlock through a clasp held the door shut. A painted sign said 'No Unauthorized Admitance' and someone had chalked another 't' above 'Admitance', tried to legitimize it. Sutcliffe put his shoulder to the door and the clasp fell free as the wood splintered away from it.

He pitched forward and sprawled on the ground, a torn page of newspaper flapping up at him like a savage bird. He ripped the paper from his face and threw it to the muddy ground of the building site. 'Economic Growth in Single Digits' the paper cried out for a damp second, then it faded from view in the muddy puddle and the dim light. He slammed the door shut behind him and leaned against it breathless.

Single Digits. Like his watch. Digital.

His exhausted brain made a connection, and with the sound of approaching high heels cracking on the pavement outside he tore at his wrist. Eventually the strap loosened and he hurled the watch into the darkness above him high over the wooden wall, away from the advancing footsteps as they made their invisible, unhurried way towards the door.

A dog barked close and getting closer. Sutcliffe staggered to a halt. Guard dogs. He looked back towards the door, debating which animal to take his chances with. He could no longer hear the footsteps, but the barking was closing in. It was joined by another, more distant, growl.

32.She might still be tracking it, looking in vain along an empty street where a digital watch ticked away its life unheeded in a damp gutter.

The Dobermann hurled itself out of the night. Sutcliffe had almost reached the door when it caught him in the back, slamming him into the wooden wall. The impact bounced the door open a crack, and he leaped through, slammed the door shut again behind him. The wood gave under the weight of the dog scrabbling at it from the other side.

He gathered his strength and glanced along the street. Which way should he go? 'Problems, problems,' he muttered almost under his breath.

'No problem,' said a soft voice from behind him. And his legs gave way beneath him as if hit by a sledgehammer.

He could not get up his legs were numb from the impact.

She leaned over him, her hair falling forward neatly, her smile straight out of the same conditioner advert. But this time he was ready, and rolled with the punch as her heavy fist connected with his face. He lashed out as he moved, his fingers connecting with her face. He felt the nails imbed themselves in the soft skin. And tear.

She stood upright suddenly more as if she were surprised than in pain. His fingers were sticky as he tried to drag himself away. He tumbled the short distance over the kerb into the road, twisted as he fell, landed on his back.

She seemed to tower above him, given extra height by the pavement. He had just a moment when he could have dragged himself to his numbed feet and fled. But in that same moment the moon emerged from a cloud, and he saw her face. And froze.

He had ripped the flesh from one side of her face. The skin hung in torn strips, flapping slightly in the breeze. But there was no blood. The viscous mess that clung to the broken skin was more like engine grease than anything organic.

But Sutcliffe hardly noticed this. His attention was anch.o.r.ed on the face beneath a segmented, green head bulging from one side of Johanna's skin-deep beauty. The tiny scales glistened in the moonlight, s.h.i.+mmered over each other as the head swayed mesmerically. A thin pale tongue licked at the 33 lips of a mouth that was half human and half serpent, hissing sharply in the sudden quiet of the night. And the inhuman eye swivelled to look directly into his own.

He imagined rather than heard the whirring of a minute motor driving the eye in its socket. The small metal levers which held the artificial eyeball in place moved smoothly in their joints, the reptilian skin rippling slightly where the mechanism was grafted in, where machine met monster. He was vaguely aware that he understood her inhuman strength, appreciated why her fist was hard as iron as she hauled him to his feet. Her fingers flexed with machine precision within the soft leather of her glove.

Then she grasped his neck and wrenched it sideways.

She did not release his limp body until she had torn the CD from his jacket pocket. Then she let go, and Kevin Sutcliffe slumped back into the gutter. His eyes stared up at the moon as it slipped ashamed behind another cloud. The only sound was of high heels on tarmac, and of the breeze whispering along the deserted street.

'Well, that was very pleasant.' The Doctor put down his gla.s.s and wiped his mouth with his scarf.

'Aren't you going to finish it?' His gla.s.s was still half full.

He looked at the remains of the ginger beer for a while. 'No,'

he said. Then his mouth opened into a huge smile. 'Ask me why,' he grinned.

'All right,' said Sarah with a laugh, 'why?'

'Partly because we're late '

'You're telling me,' Sarah inserted just loud enough for him to hear.

The Doctor ignored the interruption. 'And partly because the ginger beer isn't actually terribly good.'

Not a good vintage?'

'No.' He peered at the gla.s.s again. 'A ninety-seven, I would say.'

'Is that bad?'

'I should have tried the Old Gavelblaster Old Gavelblaster,' he confided.

Sarah winced. 'That bad!'

34.'Mmmm. And we should be going before we get involved involved in anything.' The Doctor was on his feet now, winding miles of scarf round his neck as if it were string and his head was a yo-yo. in anything.' The Doctor was on his feet now, winding miles of scarf round his neck as if it were string and his head was a yo-yo.

'I did think,' Sarah told him as she pulled on her coat, 'that you were going to get involved with that drunk earlier.'

'Who me?' He seemed amazed. 'No. Just a little friendly advice about temperance beverages perhaps.'

'He may have got that from his wife or whoever she was.'

The Doctor paused in his scarf routine. 'Yes, perhaps that's why he seemed so frightened.' He looked round, patting his pockets. 'An interesting woman, by the look of her. Now, have we got everything?'

Sarah stood on tiptoe and said into his ear: 'Beauty's only skin deep, you know.'

'Yes.' The Doctor frowned suddenly. He plunged a hand into his coat pocket. 'And evil goes right to the core.'

Marc Lewis held the compact disc carefully, hands cupped round the rim so as not to touch the surface. The disc caught the bright office lighting as he lowered it into the tray of the CD drive, reflected a rainbow of colours. He pushed the tray shut.

'I don't think it's been damaged.' He was relieved.

Johanna stood beside his desk, watching. Her face was still in tatters, but neither of them seemed to care. The CD was all that mattered.

'Will you report the event sequence to Stabfield?'

'Of course. Everything will be fine. He'll get an executive summary tonight and back-up slides in the morning.' Lewis moved the mouse on its plastic pad. 'I'll just check the integrity of the disc, to be sure we don't have to restore another one from back-up. Then I'll start on the status report.'

The CD drive whirred into life, spinning up to speed. The light flashed steadily as the drive read data from the disc and pa.s.sed it to the processor. Lewis leaned back, a slight smile creasing his face, his elbows resting easily on the arms of the chair and his fingers steepled.

35.Then In The Mood In The Mood started to play buoyantly through the PC started to play buoyantly through the PC speaker. The music echoed round the office, wiping the synthetic smile from Lewis's face.

'What is it?' Sarah asked.

'I don't know.' The Doctor pulled his hand from his coat pocket. He was holding a small sheet of paper a double-fold from a duplicate pad, like the one at the food counter.

They sat down again, and the Doctor unfolded the paper carefully, so as not to damage its content. It was wrapped around a reflective silver disc. The Doctor examined it closely.

'A compact disc.'

'Eh?'

'Or a CD-ROM for storing computer data and software.'

Sarah picked up the paper, rescuing it from the drops of ginger beer which peppered the table top. 'What do you make of this, Doctor?' She held the paper out to him. On it was scrawled a single word, written hurriedly in capital letters: HUBWAY 36.

03.

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