Doctor Who_ Loving The Alien Part 43

'Oh, I know that it's not top-level work. Cosmetically, I mean.' He smiled sympathetically at Rita. 'And if I was as pretty as you, then I'd be having second thoughts too, but this year...' He gripped the coin tight in his fist and turned towards the small door with its single spotlight. 'This year I don't think that I've got any choice. I need the work before I run out of...'

'Energy?'

The man laughed again, humourlessly. 'Energy. Right.' He took a deep breath. 'No point putting it off any longer...'

'What's your name?'

'My name?'

'Yes.' Rita flashed him her most brilliant smile. 'I just wanted to know your name, that's all.'

'Sid... Sid Napley.'

'Then I'm really sorry, Sid' said Rita 212.

He looked at her, puzzled. 'For what?'

'For this...'

Rita put all her strength into a punch that caught the little man on the tip of his jaw. He spun around, his face a mask of surprise and crashed into the snow with a wet thump.

'Jeez...' Rita clutched at her knuckles, gasping at the pain. 'That always looked easier in the movies.'

Napley lay at her feet, flat out on his back, arms outstretched. Rita suddenly remembered a winter in Maine with a favourite cousin. The two of them used to fall back into the powder-soft snow and make angel shapes. Napley didn't look much like an angel now The bruise was already starting to come out on his jaw, and his breath was ragged in his throat.

Ignoring her throbbing hand, Rita caught the little man under the arms and hauled him into the shadows, leaning him gently against one of the pillars. His fist was still clamped tightly around the St Nicolas farthing. Rita prised his fingers apart and held the coin up to the light.

Words were crudely inscribed around the tarnished copper edge.

'Embracing the future through technology.'

Rita shook her head and stared down at the unconscious body of Sid Napley. 'It's a future that you're better off without, Sid, trust me. That jaw of yours may ache a bit over Christmas, but you'll thank me for it one day.'

Rita pulled Napley's jacket tight around him and b.u.t.toned it, then stood, brus.h.i.+ng the snow from her coat, and scurried over to the inconspicuous little doorway. A small, expensive-looking plaque was screwed to the door, emblazoned with a symbol a stylised baby held in a mechanical hand. Suddenly feeling sick, Rita gripped the St Nicolas farthing tightly, took a deep breath and pushed the door open.

She stepped into a small, dreary office, stiflingly hot after the bitter November night. Posters endorsing the benefits of augmentation peppered the walls, a sad tree strewn with threadbare tinsel failed miserably to create a festive atmosphere.

At the far side of the room a bored-looking man sat at a counter, flicking through a magazine. Rita crossed to the desk. The man half glanced at her.

'Office opens again first week in January. Application forms are in the rack by the door.'

'I was told to come here with this.' Rita placed the coin on the counter.

The man gave a weary sigh, closed his magazine and took the coin, 213 turning it over and over in his hand.

'It's genuine. Honest.' Rita felt a surge of panic.

'Of course it's genuine. No one in their right mind is going to try and bluff their way in here.'

The man peered up at Rita' frowning slightly.

'You don't look the usual type'

Rita shrugged. 'American.'

The man nodded, as if that explained everything. He dropped the coin into a metal box on the desk, handed her a thick form and indicated a door on the far wall.

'Take a seat in the waiting room and fill out the form.'

He pressed a b.u.t.ton under the counter. There was a strident buzz and the door swung open.

'You coin-takers always leave it late. This is the last intake tonight and some of us have families to go to, Christmas to celebrate.'

Rita could hear the contempt in his voice. No wonder Napley had been having second thoughts. She gritted her teeth and forced a smile, 'Thank you.'

The man grunted and turned back to his magazine. Heart pounding, Rita stepped into the waiting room.

Two dozen pairs of eyes swung in her direction. Rita had to choke back a sob. Never had she seen people with such despair in their face.

They sat in neat ranks on stark metal chairs; weary, dishevelled mere frightened women and children. Stainless steel hospital trolleys wed about up near a set of heavy double doors, posters with stark warnings about the dangers of falsifying forms dominated the room. Nothing was done to soften the harsh reality of what was about to happen to these people.

A noise made Rita start. In one corner a young girl tried desperately to get her baby to stop crying. Rita had a sudden vision of that baby grasped in a huge mechanical claw and felt a wave of anger. This was wrong. It was sad, and pathetic and wrong wrong.

Tears blurred her vision. Throwing her sheaf of papers to one side, she crossed the waiting room and hauled open the heavy doors.

Someone caught hold of her arm, shouting something about waiting her turn. Rita pulled herself free and stumbled blindly into the corridor beyond. She had no plan, no carefully thought-out strategy for finding her way out of here. She just wanted to get away from this strange and twisted world. She wanted to get back to her own world, her own Christmas. A world where flowers had smell and food had taste and people didn't have to be turned into machines in order to survive the winter.

214.

Someone suddenly caught hold of her. She nearly screamed but a hand slipped over her mouth, cutting off the sound. Panic welled up inside her and she started to kick and punch at her attacker. There was a sudden firm pressure on her forehead, then everything went calm and quiet.

She felt her eyes closing.

When she opened them again the Doctor was peering at her, concern in his face. He gave a little half smile, grey eyes twinkling.

'What's a nice girl like you doing in an alternative reality like this?'

The short one Bure lit another cigarette with shaking hands and stared out at the flickering energy tear that hung over London like an electric curtain.

'I just don't understand why we couldn't go with them, that's all.'

Hark the boss looked up from his desk in irritation. 'Because the work is here, everything we have worked on. Every note, every file.

You would have us abandon all that?'

'No. No, I suppose not.'

Your enthusiasm is overwhelming.'

'I'd just feel a lot happier at Winnerton Flats, that's all,' snapped Bure.

'And I'd feel a lot safer if they hadn't let the Doctor go.' Hark rubbed at the scar on his arm where Chief Inspector Mullen had stabbed him. 'I could use a little scalpel work at the moment.'

'What about those apes? You saw what they could do.'

'Primitive experiments. Hardly capable of stopping bullets. The general should have mopped them all up on his way out. By now they'll all be dead.'

Hark looked over at where his flunky was hovering in the window.

'Oh' for heaven's sake, sit down, man! I tell you there's nothing to worry about. The general has left some of his best men looking after us. He knows the value of what we do.'

'Are you sure about that?' Cody McBride stepped from the shadows of the doorway where he'd been lurking' an army service revolver in his hands.

Bure dropped his cigarette. 'Oh, my G.o.d...'

Hark leaned back in his chair, watching McBride with an amused smile. 'Well, well, our enterprising private detective. And what can we do for you?'

'A little prescription, Doc. Nothing much. There's a friend of mine in a ward downstairs. I'd like you to get him a wheelchair, and I'd like you to wake him up.'

215.

'Ah, our unfortunate Inspector Mullen.'

'Chief Inspector.'

Hark nodded. 'As you wish. Chief Chief Inspector Mullen. And may I ask where you think you are going to take him? It would be dangerous to move him. He's a very sick man.' Inspector Mullen. And may I ask where you think you are going to take him? It would be dangerous to move him. He's a very sick man.'

'No, I think you're the sick one around here.' McBride's face was stern. 'And if you don't do what I say, then I'm gonna do some surgery of my own and put a hole in that nasty little skull of yours.'

Bure gripped Hark by the shoulders. 'See, I told you we should have gone!' he stammered. 'How did he get past the guards? Crawhammer's best, you said!'

Hark shrugged him off angrily.

'My colleague is a little over-emotional, but he does have a point, Mr McBride. You do seem to have got up here with remarkable ease.'

McBride shrugged. 'What can I say? Crawhammer's men seem to have the most childlike trust in military authority.'

'But you have have no military authority, McBride.' no military authority, McBride.'

'Yeah, and isn't that a b.i.t.c.h? Fortunately, I have friends in high places.'

With the gun still trained on Hark's forehead, McBride called back over his shoulder.

'How we doin' out there, Davey?'

Davey O'Brien appeared, breathless and sweating, a machine gun slung over one shoulder. 'I've got him into the chair, but he's not a happy bunny. I really hope you know what you're doing, McBride.'

Hark raised a quizzical eyebrow 'Captain O'Brien? I thought that you would have left with the general.'

'That's what the general thought, too.' said O'Brien. 'Unfortunately he's American army whereas I'm RAF, so I don't take orders from him.'

'He was very useful in getting us past Crawhammer's best, though.'

A trace of a smile flickered over McBride's face. 'And my buddy here tends to give most of his orders with the b.u.t.t of his gun, but then he does have kind of a personal perspective on our little situation...'

'What are you going to do with us? What is it that you want?' Bure was white with fear.

'I told you,' said McBride. 'I want you to wake up Mullen, and then you, me, the Chief Inspector and the O'Brien twins are going to go for a little walk.'

'You'll never get out of here, you know.' Hark's smile had faded, his face shadowed and stern. 'You'll never escape.'

'Well, now, here's a thing.' McBride brought the gun closer to 216 Hark's face. 'I've got myself a bit of a plan, and once you've revived Mullen for me, then all I need from you is the key to the elevator at the end of the hall.'

'I don't know what you mean.'

'Come on' Doc. I've been running about all day, being shot at by the Welsh Guards and jumped on by monkeys and all this time there's been an elevator. Problem is that it's a staff elevator and it needs a key.

So I started wondering, "who would use the staff elevator", and you know what answer I came up with? Doctors. You're a doctor, so you must have a key.'

'I really don't know what you're talking about.'

'No?' McBride pulled the hammer back on the revolver. 'Because if that's true' then I really don't know why I need you.'

'You need me to revive Mr Mullen.'

'Nah, not really. I'm sure that your stooge here is capable of giving him the, uh, shot.'

He pressed the barrel of the revolver against the bridge of Hark's nose.

'Give me the key.'

Hark reached into the pocket of his white lab coat and pulled out a small silver key. McBride took it and threw it over to O'Brien.

'Davey, why don't you get your, uh, twin take Shorty here and get down to the bas.e.m.e.nt. I'll be right behind you.'

'McBride, you might need a hand. I'm not sure...'

'I can handle this goon. Besides, your other half might not be the best thing for Mullen to see at the moment. He's sort of got a bit of a thing about cybernetics.'

O'Brien nodded. 'All right. Be careful.' He pointed his rifle at Bure.

'You, come with me.'

A trembling Bure scampered past McBride, throwing a terrified look at Hark as he pa.s.sed. Hark didn't even glance at him.

McBride took a deep breath and pulled the gun away from Hark's face. 'Well now, Dr Hark. Time to visit the patient.'

217.