Doctor Who: The Blood Cell (13 page)

‘I’ve flown on a carpet,’ said 428, seemingly serious. ‘It had fleas. And was worryingly saggy.’

Lafcardio smiled tolerantly. ‘Of course you have. We used to have a copy of
The Phoenix and the Carpet.
’ He looked suddenly crestfallen. ‘It’s gone now.’

We walked slowly along the corridors towards
where the library had once been. Devoid of people, The Prison still made noises to itself. Ghost doors slammed. Metal walkways ticked away like clocks. And it was getting warmer. Stiflingly so.

Even 428 had noticed. ‘The air is getting stale. Oxygen content is becoming depleted already. The air units need to start recycling pretty soon.’

‘Oh, I shouldn’t worry,’ Lafcardio muttered. ‘They always sort it out here. The Governor is efficient to a fault.’ He addressed this last remark to me, seemingly without realising I used to be the Governor. ‘Ah, here we are.’

The Library was a mess. Many of the shelves had gone to make canteen furniture, but a few still remained, stretching away into the shadows of the room. Huge piles of unknowable junk, charred remnants of the venting, were cluttered around grilles. Even though the air had been emptied and recycled several times, the whole place still reeked, a sickly rich smell of burnt plastic.

Lafcardio placed his little handful of books on a shelf. They looked pathetic. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘It’s a start, isn’t it? Every man has to start somewhere. And I’ll get there.’

He pottered off among the debris, pulling out the occasional singed fragment of a book, sometimes little more than a spine and burnt margins, placing it hopefully on a shelf.

Soon he forgot we were even there, moving around, muttering to himself.

‘We’ll get you some more books,’ I offered.

428 nodded. It was the right thing to say.

‘Oh good.’ Lafcardio rubbed his hands, then went back to plunging through the teetering stacks of debris. ‘Something’s glinting in here … All that glitters …’

We left him alone.

‘The poor man’s gone mad. He really wasn’t much help,’ I said to 428.

He gave me one of his chilling looks. ‘Really? Did it not tell you that sometimes, somehow, life finds a way of continuing, of pressing on? Even if it has to blinker itself to a few unfortunate details of reality.’

‘He needs help,’ I said.

‘No, no.’ 428 smiled. ‘I think you’ll find he’s the happiest person in here.’

Which was when we heard Lafcardio’s scream.

We raced back through to the Library without even thinking of the danger we were in.

In a corner of the room lay the little old man’s body, broken.

Looking around, the darkness loomed over us, huge and sinister. The piles of debris, the empty shelves, everything threw ominous shadows.

‘Something in here killed him,’ I said.

428 crouched over his body. ‘Yes,’ he said sadly. ‘He was reading.’ He tapped the open book still clutched in the man’s hand. ‘
The Magician’s Nephew
. That’s a good one.’ He closed the book gently, laid it to rest on Lafcardio’s chest, and then straightened slowly up. ‘We should go.’

‘Really?’

428’s voice was very low. ‘The door is just there. We should go.’

‘But why?’

‘Can you never whisper?’ 428 hissed, ‘Because the door is there and nothing came out of this room so …’

‘What killed him is still in here?’ I gasped.

‘Oh, so you can whisper.’ 428 nodded curtly.

We didn’t make it for the door before it came for us. One of the piles of debris shifted and something rushed out of it at us. It was hard to see exactly what it was, what form it took, but it was swift and deadly.

It went for 428, or, rather, 428 went for it with a chair. All I could really see was him moving among shadows, crying out occasionally.

I made for the door.

I stood on the outside, pausing, trying to work out what to do next. I could seal the door. That was probably the safest thing. It would mean losing 428, but it would also mean I had trapped that creature – something else that may, just, have caused the
problems I was accused of. Evidence. I tapped in the code to seal the door. It didn’t work. They’d changed my passcode.

428 shot out. ‘Ah, you waited for me? Brilliant!’ He beamed at me. I noticed the jagged tears in his prison uniform. He was holding the battered remains of a chair. He tossed it back inside, and then pulled a spoon from his pocket. ‘I made another one,’ he laughed. With a whirr of noise, the door to the library sealed.

‘What was that?’ I asked.

‘Frightening,’ he replied. His smile had faded from his face. ‘I’ve still no idea what it is, but it’s lethal. It also appears to just kill.’

‘How so?’

‘It’s no longer as curious. Nor is it cautious any more.’

‘Any more?’

‘It’s the same thing we encountered on Level 6. It had been taking pains to cover up its tracks. Now it left Lafcardio’s body for us to find. Either because it didn’t care, or because he didn’t have what it wanted, or it was luring us to …’ His smile was grim, ‘It’s certainly clever.’ He tapped his teeth with his fingers, ‘It’s a trap … in a trap.’

‘What?’ I said.

‘I think that’ll become apparent. We should go.’

‘Too late,’ said Bentley.

She was standing behind us, with a squadron of Guardians. They looked tired but very, very angry.

‘Ah, hello,’ said 428. ‘You shouldn’t have found us yet.’

‘No,’ agreed Bentley. ‘But the Governor just used his pincode on the library door.’

‘Oh. Oh, I see.’ 428 gave me a look. I didn’t see what it was, as I was staring at the floor. I took some comfort from the fact that Bentley had still called me Governor.

428 strode into the space between us and Bentley’s Guardians.

‘Now then, the problem is that I wanted to lay out a theory to you. A careful theory which convinced all of you, Prisoners and Guardians, to work together if you wanted to live.’

‘I don’t have any more time for your clever, lethal theories,’ snapped Bentley. She stepped forward, and 428 swept up a hand.

‘Neither do I,’ he snapped. ‘I needed to gather evidence. Build a convincing case. Avoid you finding us with any dead bodies. I’ve a procedure. It’s tried and tested. Still,’ he sighed, ‘sometimes you improvise.’

428 held up his spoon.

Before any of the Guardians could draw and fire, the door to the library had sprung open and the thing was upon us all.

‘What is that?’ yelled Bentley.

‘Later,’ snapped 428. ‘Just shoot it.’

The thing? I suppose I should describe the thing as it appeared. It was a fast-moving mass, taller than a man, and wider. At first it seemed to be wearing shadows, and then a cloak, and then I realised … It was covered in scraps of black plastic sheeting from the debris in the library. The tatters fluttered around it like streamers, disguising its true shape. Something glinted underneath. But I also had the strangest memory of childhood – seeing an ancient pantomime enacted. One where a dragon rushed across the stage. The dragon was a terrifying spectacle (especially when you were a 6-year-old boy), but even I could see that as it moved and twisted, the costume shifted and the joins revealed tiny hints of the operators inside – bits of an arm or a flank. It was the same here. Inside all that black sheeting was metal, but also what seemed to be a person.

It made a horrifying spectacle as it bore down on us. On the Guardians. On all of us.

‘You heard the Doctor,’ I yelled. ‘Just shoot it!’

The Guardians pulled out their blasters and fired at the thing.

‘Brilliant!’ enthused the Doctor. ‘Just as I thought. No effect. That’s splendid. That means you have to listen to me if you want to live.’

‘What?’ Bentley stared at him in disbelief.

‘Your guns don’t work,’ the Doctor was saying, ‘and shortly after that happens, everyone always decides they need me—’

One of the Guardians got too close. She vanished screaming into the black mass. Seconds later something wet was thrown out of it.

‘Trust me. Trust me now,’ snapped the Doctor. ‘You can’t stop that creature. We all need to run.’

Bentley glanced in horror at the Guardian’s body. At the black, glinting, whirring mass heading towards us.

‘Fall back,’ she snapped.

We all ran then, following the Doctor, who ran quickly, like he’d had a lifetime of running.

Bentley drew up to me. ‘So, you’re trusting 428 now?’ she said.

‘For the moment, I have to.’

‘Don’t be fooled,’ she told me. ‘Remember the report on him. He gets close to you so that he can attack you.’

‘And what about you?’ My voice was terse. ‘Isn’t that what you’ve done?’

‘I was …’ Bentley faltered. Or maybe she was running out of breath. ‘I was obeying Protocols.’

The Doctor took us round a corner, and waited until we’d passed through an archway. As soon as the last Guardian was through, the Doctor brought up
his spoon and a blast shield slammed down. Seconds later, the shield buckled under a terrific impact. The creature itself was utterly silent, but the metal it was attacking screamed.

‘We do not …’ the Doctor began and then his eyes drifted to the blast shield. All of us were watching it. ‘We really don’t have very long. It’s got a lot stronger.’

Bentley marched up to him and knocked him to the floor. ‘You let that thing loose on us. Because of you, another one of my Guardians is dead. When are you going stop?’

‘People keep on hitting me today.’ The Doctor lay sprawled on the floor. ‘You know what, it’s comfortable down here. I may stay.’

Bentley kicked him before I could stop her.

He groaned. ‘Yes,’ he said to her sourly. ‘Yes, I let that thing out. Risky short cut. I am sorry about your colleague. If you’d listened to me, maybe it wouldn’t have happened. But I needed to show you. You don’t really know what’s going on here at all. Ignore what you’ve been promised.’

‘Shut up!’ Bentley grabbed hold of him by the throat. When she spoke to him it was in a hoarse, exhausted scream. ‘I don’t care about your lies. Tell me about your creature!’

He let out a little rattle, flapping his hands at her arms. ‘I can’t,’ he croaked. ‘Not when you’re … choking … me …’

But Bentley didn’t let go. She was still shouting at him. ‘It’s all because of you, isn’t it? Because of you they all died. I thought it was him –’ she jabbed a finger at me – ‘but no. The prisoners. Level 7. Chandress – yes, that was the name of “my colleague”. I knew all their names – and … and …’

‘Donaldson,’ I said to Bentley, softly. I placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘That’s enough.’ I spoke calmly. It was my best Governing tone.

For once, it sort of worked. She let go of the Doctor’s throat. He fell back gasping. ‘You … you’ve got quite a grip.’

Bentley turned to me, staring at me. Properly looking me in the eyes. Working out what I was going to say next.

‘All right, then,
Governor
, what do you want to say? What are your orders?’

‘Well …’ I began. And then I saw it. The looks in her Guardians’ faces. Their dismay that Bentley might listen to me. I’d lost their faith. I saw that now. And I couldn’t afford for her to lose theirs. There had to be a chain of command of some sort.

‘I don’t … I don’t have any orders.’ My throat was dry, but I pressed on, pointing at them. ‘Right now, I just want you to leave us alone. Prisoner 428 and I are working on a theory. That something’s going on here that we don’t understand yet. But that’s it. I don’t want you to obey me. Or even really believe me. I just want
you all to stay alive and keep safe.’

I put down my hand, and pulled the Doctor up from the floor. He stared at me, still panting from Bentley’s assault.

‘Come on, Doctor,’ I said. ‘We’re going.’

We walked away. No one tried to stop us.

We turned the corner.

The Doctor looked at me. ‘Small thing,’ he said. ‘I should probably just nip back and tell them three more little facts.’

My hand landed on his shoulder. It was a modification of Safe Restraint Grip Five. The Doctor winced.

‘On second thoughts,’ he grunted, ‘I don’t think we need to go back after all.’

We walked on in silence. I took him to the viewing platform.

‘Look at that,’ I said. ‘Out there. Space. Getting on with its life. All those planets and systems. All somehow moving on. It makes what’s happening here … so trivial. Out there it’s business as usual. In here … oh, I feel … is everything that’s happened here somehow my fault?’

‘Is it?’ asked the Doctor.

‘I don’t know,’ I told him. ‘Not any more.’

‘Well then …’ He pointed out at the stars. ‘I’ll tell you something, Governor. Out there? That beautiful
sparkling night sky? Every twinkle out there is putting a brave face on it. Each one’s got their own problems. And I’ll get to them all some day. But right now you’re my priority.’

It felt comforting.

We stood and looked at the skies.

‘So what do we do now?’

‘I’ll tell you a theory, if you’ll then tell me something.’

‘All right,’ I agreed. I was searching the view, trying to see any traces of the remains of Level 7.

‘My theory is that this Prison has been sabotaged. The power outages? The thing downstairs? The Custodians deactivating? The Defence Array firing when it shouldn’t have? They’re all part of that. A deliberate plan.’

‘By who?’

‘Have you any enemies, Governor?’

I laughed at that. ‘Only friends,’ I assured the Doctor. ‘I’ve told you that. Everyone here is my friend.’

We both chuckled grimly.

‘I’m wondering something,’ I said. ‘You’re suggesting that somehow The Prison is turning against us.’

‘I am, yes.’

‘So that would mean that our TransNet linkup has been kept deliberately bad …’

‘To avoid you being able to get help, yes.’

‘Which would mean that this has been planned for
a long time. Maybe while The Prison was still being built?’

‘Almost.’ The Doctor tipped a hand out and tilted it from side to side. ‘Some and some. I think we can agree on one thing, Governor, and that is that you’ve been set up. Set up for an almighty fall.’

I looked out at the stars. Then I held on to the rail. Very tightly.