Doctor Who_ Loving The Alien Part 41

'I said no one is goin' anywhere.' He pulled back the hammer of the gun with his thumb. There was a sharp click. The room went deathly quiet. McBride held his breath.

The Doctor turned slowly, staring levelly down the barrel of the gun.

'You know, General, I once spent a summer in Louisiana, on a ranch that bred racehorses. I met a little girl there called Ellie Jane. She used to make necklaces out of wild flowers, help her mother stir sugar into the home-made lemonade and she was very proud of her grandfather.'

The Doctor took a step towards Crawhammer, his face dimly reflected in the lenses of the general's sungla.s.ses.

'She told me that her grandfather was big and strong and kind, and 199 had helped her build a doll's house the previous summer. He had been a soldier a long time ago, but he didn't talk about that much. She said that he was too old to play with her now, but always sat on the porch when she was out in the fields to keep an eye on her. He used to sit in an old creaky chair and carve little toys out of bits of mangrove wood.

'Ellie was named after her grandmother, but she'd died the previous year. Her grandfather wasn't sad, though, because he said that they had had so many good years together, and that he had seen so much death that it didn't frighten him anymore. Now he was happy just to sit and watch life go by, carving his toys and watching his granddaughter.'

The Doctor took another step towards Crawhammer. The muzzle of the gun was almost against his forehead. McBride's heart was pounding.

'The events that are unfolding around us are a mistake, General, a mistake compounded by things that I have done and things that George Limb has done. If you shoot me now, then it ends here, for me, for you, for everything. I join my friend Ace as a statistic, a casualty of war, another corpse amongst the millions that will litter these streets. If you shoot me now, then within hours the bombs will start falling and everything will be gone. Past, present, future. Gone. Not just in this pension, but in millions of others.

Crawhammer's gun didn't waver.

'George Limb is the catalyst, the linchpin that all this chaos is revolving about. He is my responsibility. I'm the one who gave him the tools to unravel history and I'm the one who has to stop him.'

The Doctor turned and began walking calmly across the ward. In the doorway he stopped and turned back to the general. 'You should go to Louisiana, General. It's very beautiful in the summer.'

Then he was gone.

The Doctor was halfway down the stairwell when McBride caught up him.

'Hey, Doc, wait up.'

The Doctor turned and looked quizzically at him. McBride was pale and sweating. 'You gotta remember that I'm not a young man any more, Doc. Stunts like that do nothing for my heart...'

He leant against the wall, breathing heavily. 'So did your meeting with General Custer go badly?'

The Doctor looked grave. 'He's a brave man, and resourceful... but he has a disturbing sense of mission, and that's very dangerous.'

He shook his head as if to clear it and started back down the stairs.

McBride hurried after him.

200.

'Where we goin'?'

'The TARDIS. There are a few things that I need if I'm going to catch up with Mr Limb.'

'Your box of tricks? You mean it's here?'

The Doctor nodded. 'In the bas.e.m.e.nt.'

'Hang on a minute, McBride caught the Doctor by the sleeve. 'The bas.e.m.e.nt's going to be crawling with these soldiers from another dimension, not to mention half a dozen bad-tempered battery-operated monkeys that we've just released down there.'

The Doctor patted the pockets of his borrowed jacket. 'And I'm right out of bananas. Come along, Cody.'

As the Doctor trotted down the stairs, McBride pulled a packet of Lucky Strikes out of his trenchcoat and lit one up. He took a deep lungful and shook his head. 'And I thought these were going to kill me: Crawhammer chomped on his cigar and scowled at Bill Collins.

'Well?'

'The task force is ready, sir. I've armed them with everything we've got.'

'And the chopper?'

'Ready to go, sir.'

'You realise we'll probably be shot down, Major.'

'Yes, sir.'

'We jus' gotta pray to good G.o.d the a.s.sault will be enough to throw 'em off.'

He didn't sound convinced.

'It's not much,' he said, 'but it's all we got. '

Suddenly there was a screaming in the air. Crawhammer drew his gun and strode to the window.

'It's the RAF!' someone shouted. Somebody else whooped.

'Nice to know someone out there has their s.h.i.+t together,' said Crawhammer.

There were cheers as a sleek grey airs.h.i.+p, armed to the teeth, was brought down by a Lightning jet. Nice move. Other planes were strafing the ground. A line of bullets tore through the window.

'Down!' Collins shouted, hitting the deck.

Peering up, he could see the enemy being driven back. Crawhammer stood, unmoved, at his position.

'This is it,' he said. 'Roll out the a.s.sault group. Fire up the chopper.'

McBride clamped his hands over his ears and tried to shut out the whoops and howls of the apes, the roar of planes and the clatter of machine-gun fire. Beside him crouched the Doctor, his face a mask of 201 concern. The two of them were crammed into a storage cupboard on the ground floor, hunched amongst piles of folded bedsheets and crisp, clean-smelling nurses' uniforms.

Getting down the stairwell had been a nightmare, the hospital was cold and dark and the jungle sounds of the augmented apes had made McBride's skin crawl. At every floor the Doctor had peered cautiously onto the landing before tiptoeing over to the next flight of stairs, and at every floor McBride had been waiting for two hundred pounds of augmented ape to come cras.h.i.+ng through the doors and tear them to pieces.

The evidence of the augments' savagery had been strewn everywhere.

Twisted, torn corpses lying in pools of congealing blood, absurdly young faces frozen in expressions of sheer horror.

At the first corpse they had found the Doctor had stopped, hands running expertly over the delicate tracery of wires and filaments that tattooed the skin of these soldiers from another dimension. After that he had ignored them, his face unreadable, those steel-grey eyes darting from shadow to shadow as he led McBride into the guts of the hospital.

As they had stepped into the ground-floor reception, a sudden sc.r.a.pe of metal on metal had made McBride jump. The place had been a mess, chairs and papers scattered everywhere, the only light coming from the street lamps outside, and the Christmas tree in one corner. The flas.h.i.+ng of the fairy lights had sent shadows dancing and moving across the room, making it impossible to see clearly. As McBride's foot had brushed against something soft and heavy, he had been quite glad of that fact. The two of them had started nervously across the reception hall when the sc.r.a.ping noise had come again. Waving for McBride to stay put, the Doctor had started to tiptoe forward when the gorilla had reared up in front of them.

The Doctor wasn't a big man at the best of times, but confronted by the towering ape, he looked like a midget. For a second, Time Lord and gorilla had stared at each other in surprise, and then, with a shattering roar, the primate had brought its augmented fist slamming down onto the linoleum floor sending the Doctor tumbling backwards and cannoning into McBride.

All sense of stealth abandoned, the two of them had hurled themselves back towards the stairs. McBride had felt the ground shudder beneath his feet as the gorilla pounded its chest in fury. He could hardly draw breath, the pain from his ribs lancing through him with every jarring step.

At the foot of the stairs the Doctor had skidded to a halt, McBride almost tripping over him. Down the stairwell had come another ape, a vicious-looking baboon, its features st.i.tched and twisted, the harsh silver metal of its augmentation battle-scarred and leaking hydraulic fluid. Startled, its lips curled back in an angry snarl. McBride had seen his frightened face reflected in the gleaming silver teeth and at that 202 moment had realised that he was as close to death as he had ever been.

The baboon had started barking angrily, las.h.i.+ng out at them with a crude club. McBride had felt the bile rise in his throat as he realised what the club was the lower half of a human leg, an army boot still tightly laced to it. From behind them had come an angry growl.

Baboon and gorilla had thrown themselves together, each screaming with fury. McBride and the Doctor had ducked and weaved as the two apes clubbed at each other with ma.s.sive paws. Sparks flew from the heavy car batteries that powered then.

A glancing blow had sent McBride sprawling, stars dancing before his eyes. He had heard the Doctor bellowing his name, the roar of the apes, and then suddenly, deafeningly, the clatter of a heavy machine' gun.

Through streaming eyes, McBride had seen the heavy double doors across the reception area swing open and surprised soldiers spill out'

Almost immediately, the ape had turned on them, tearing the gulls from their hands and clubbing them down.

A firm hand had caught McBride by the collar and pulled him to his, feet, pus.h.i.+ng him forward through the doors. Head reeling, he had been bundled down the corridor and into a cupboard, the Doctor slamming the door behind them. Now they sat, waiting for the noise of battle to subside.

McBride was under no illusions as to who was going to win that battle. The troops were well trained and well equipped, but they were no match for the augmented apes. The Doctor knew it too, McBride could see it in his eyes.

There was another burst of gunfire, then a scream as something heavy crashed against the cupboard door. There was the barking roar of one of the augments, deafening in the confined s.p.a.ce. McBride screwed up his eyes and muttered a prayer under his breath, waiting for the door to burst open and huge mechanical hands to drag them from their hiding place.

Suddenly there was silence, unexpected and shocking.

McBride squinted out from between his fingers. The Doctor had one ear pressed to the door, his brow furrowed as he strained to hear what was going on outside. All McBride could hear was his heart pounding in his chest.

The Doctor shot McBride a sideways glance and reached tentatively for the door handle. McBride wanted to scream at him not to, to leave the door shut, for them to stay here safe amongst the clean bedlinen, but his throat was dry and all he could manage was a strangled croak.

With a soft click the door opened and McBride nearly cried out as something slumped backwards into the cupboard, landing heavily on the floor between them. A look of weary resignation flickered over the Doctor's face as he stared down at the mangled body of the soldier, then, with a deep sigh, he peered out into the corridor.

203.

McBride strained to see past him. The corridor was empty save for the shattered remains of a hospital trolley. Distant barked orders drifted from somewhere far off in the building.

The Doctor scampered across the blood-slick floor and gently eased open the double doors that led to the reception area. Head c.o.c.ked on one side, he paused for a moment, listening, then waved McBride over.

The only sound was the steady, sonorous tick of the large, inelegant clock above the reception desk.

Pressing a finger to his lips, the Doctor caught hold of McBride's hand and the two of them picked their way through the shattered reception and down the stairs to the bas.e.m.e.nt. McBride had to stifle a laugh. A forty-seven-year-old man being led by the hand like a frightened toddler. He remembered another cold November night, a long time ago in another country, his father leading him down the stairs to the bas.e.m.e.nt and telling him that the dark was nothing to be frightened of and that monsters existed only in books.

McBride was older and wiser now his father was gone and the monsters were real.

The Doctor pushed open the bas.e.m.e.nt door and McBride looked apprehensively into the gloomy corridors, childish fears hovering at the back of his mind.

'Do you go out of your way to find dark, empty, scary places to land, Doc, or is it just a knack?' he whispered.

You'd have preferred it if I'd landed at the reception desk and made an appointment, perhaps?'

'Yeah? I could have coped with that bright lights, nice receptionist to talk to, a couple of nurses...'

'I'll try and do better next time. This way.'

Keeping a wary eye on the pipework that hung low from the ceiling, the Doctor padded softly down a side pa.s.sage and pushed open a grubby wooden door marked BOILER ROOM. McBride could see the dark blue shape of the Doctor's s.h.i.+p, his TARDIS, nestling amongst the tangle of pipes and dials.

The Doctor slipped a delicate chain from around his neck and slid a key into the lock. There was a click as the police-box door swung inwards, and a shaft of warm yellow light sent long shadows chasing across the bas.e.m.e.nt floor.

With his childhood bogeymen looming from every one of those shadows, McBride vanished gratefully into the light.

204.

Chapter Twenty-two.

The TARDIS was as impressive as McBride had remembered, the vast, gleaming control centre peppered with softly glowing indentations, the huge many-sided console that dominated the room twinkling with thousands of tiny lights, as if the Doctor was celebrating his own Christmas, decorating the control room with some vast, technological Christmas tree.

The whole place was bathed in a warm glow, the low background hum soothing and settling. McBride felt himself relax for the first time in what felt like days, and was suddenly aware of how tired and hungry he was.

The Doctor brushed past him and pulled at a large red lever. The ma.s.sive double doors swung smoothly shut.

'Don't want any unexpected simian company now, do we?' The Doctor started dancing around the console, prodding and poking at controls. McBride lowered himself into a high-backed leather chair, wincing at the pain from his screaming ribs. 'Don't suppose this s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p of yours has a hot tub?'

The Doctor looked at him quizzically, 'Well, yes, as a matter of fact it does...'

McBride gave a snorting laugh. 'Of course it does. Stupid of me.'

The Doctor started prodding at b.u.t.tons on the central console.

'What are you doing, Doc?'

'Tracking George Limb, said the Doctor. 'The tracer that I put on Ace...' He went quiet for a moment then, rather forcedly, brightened. 'I slipped it inside the lining of his jacket.'

The Doctor took a deep breath. 'There's a few things that I need to get, Cody. You just rest there a moment. I won't be long.'

Shrugging out of his borrowed suit jacket, the Doctor crossed the control room and vanished into the bowels of his s.h.i.+p. Cody McBride closed his eyes and let the warm calmness of the time s.h.i.+p wash over him.

In seconds he was asleep.

205.

McBride was woken from a dream of cybernetic ants and giant gorillas by someone shaking him gently by the shoulder. The Doctor was standing over him, smiling.

'No time to let you sleep, Cody. I'm sorry. I thought this might help.'

McBride took the mug that the Doctor was holding. Strong black coffee, but with a whiff of something else. He took a sip and blinked hard. There was a generous slug of something strong in there.