Doctor Who: Paradise Towers (16 page)

subsection 5, for example, could easily have escaped the killer fumes. But a few words of command from his Chief, albeit strangely unlike his usual self, and Caretaker number 49 stroke 7 subsection 5 stayed docilely to choke to death in the Cleaners’

spray. Well, so he should have done. Everybody had a duty to make sure Paradise Towers was made
thoroughly
clean, didn’t they?

The demented progress of the released Great Architect continued. Kangs and Rezzies were sharper and evaded the Cleaners more easily but they were only escaping now to be trapped later on. And in the meantime Kroagnon urged his Cleaners to search hard and ever harder. All the nasty human beings, the Caretakers, the Residents, the Kangs were to be brought out and destroyed.

Another Caretaker collapsed, coughing, across his path.

Kroagnon looked down fastidiously as the unlucky victim expired. And then he stepped over the corpse and carried on down the street with the Cleaners in his wake. He didn’t really like leaving bodies littering the streets. But the Cleaners could come back to collect the rubbish later.

For in the meantime the Chief who was once the Chief had a pressing visit to make. To the Caretakers’ Headquarters. From there he would be able to plan his whole campaign with even more deadly efficiency backed by the screens and maps ‘his’

former control room contained.

The Deputy rose to his feet as the figure entered. His immediate feeling was one of relief. The Chief who had been lost had returned and he no longer had to take on the awesome responsibilities of Regulation ZZZ. But as the Chief walked stiffly into the room, the oddness of his appearance stopped the Deputy in his tracks. The presence of a pair of Cleaners in his wake added to the Deputy’s growing sense of unease.

‘The Towers have become appallingly dirty,’ the Chief announced, brushing aside the Deputy’s attempted welcoming speech.

‘Sorry, Chief,’ the Deputy returned meekly. ‘We do our best with all that wallscrawl as you know and we try to make the Rezzies throw everything down the waste disposal chutes and –’

‘That is not what I mean,’ the Chief snapped back. And the Deputy noticed how mechanical and yet threatening his voice sounded. ‘The whole place is polluted with flesh. Living flesh.

We must remove it all. I have returned to take charge of operations.’

The Deputy had received some odd orders in his time but this was beyond anything in the rule book that he had ever come across. He gulped, unable to believe the grisliness of what he heard. ‘Flesh?’ he repeated weakly. ‘You did say living flesh?’

‘Oh yes.’ The red eyes flickered dangerously now and the Deputy felt they were unlike any eyes he had seen before. He tried to protest but his protests were ignored.

‘I believe, Deputy Chief,’ the strange voice continued, ‘there is a rule book and the rule book says in Rule One, Paragraph One, Section One, that the orders of the Chief Caretaker are never to be questioned.’

The argument was a powerful one and the Deputy had a lifetime of obedience behind him but he also knew that he had to break his habits if he was to survive. The strangeness of the Chief’s appearance and the even greater strangeness of his remarks sent alarm bells ringing even in the Deputy’s obtuse brain. He found himself edging past the Chief and towards the door talking frantically the while.

‘Well, Chief,’ he burbled, ‘I think you may recall that there are certain cases specified in the rule book when Rule One, Paragraph One, Section One, can be over-ridden. And one of those occasions I think I’m right in saying is set out in Appendix K, Subsection 5X. And that’s when the Chief Caretaker –’

‘Yes?’ The Deputy was at the door now but the Chief’s question held him there suspended for a moment before he could break the spell.

Finally he blurted out the ruling: ‘When the Chief Caretaker just isn’t the Chief Caretaker...’

The Deputy turned and ran for his life through the open door out of the Headquarters. It would have been easy enough for the Cleaners to destroy him before he had got even an inch beyond the door but Kroagnon prevented them.

What was the point? What was the hurry? They would clean him up when they cleaned up all the others.

Mel and the Doctor sat on loungers beside the pool talking openly and honestly about their adventures as old friends can whenever they meet up. Nearby the Kangs, Blue and Red, now assembled up at the pool in the sky in full force, rested and gathered their strength for the final conflict. And some way off, Pex sat alone and unhappy, all too aware of the half-amused, half-contemptuous looks the Kangs occasionally gave him.

Mel had quickly alerted the Doctor and the Kangs to the dangers of the pool. Now she stared into it moodily.

‘I’m sorry that you didn’t really enjoy your swim, Mel,’ the Doctor joked to cheer her up.

‘Oh, it’s all right,’ Mel answered. ‘I – we – finally shot whatever it was and the pool’s been quiet since. But imagine building this beautiful pool and then filling it with mechanical killers.’

The Doctor sighed. ‘The rest of the Towers would have been like this pool if the Great Architect had had his way. A killer in every corner.’

‘And you’re sure Kroagnon’s been let loose again?’ Mel enquired. They had been through the story already but Mel knew that they needed to keep going through it until the Doctor could see his way to some solution.

‘Oh very much so.’ The Doctor stroked his chin ruefully.

‘But we know so little about his plans. That’s what’s so worrying.

He’s had years to brood over what he wants to do. We’ve no time at all to come up with the counterplan.’

His eyes wandered over to where Pex sat. Some of the Kangs had come up to him now and their mockery was more blatant.

‘How’s scaredy cat, Pex, then?’ Bin Liner smirked.

Pex turned away in the vain hope that he might be left alone but Drinking Fountain cut in now. ‘Did Mel make the creature unalive for you?’ she jeered.

‘And stop you being taken to the Cleaners?’ put in Fire Escape.

Pex reluctantly admitted that this was the case. ‘Then Mel
is
a Kang after all,’ Fire Escape exclaimed thoughtfully. The other Kangs nodded. Pex was once again isolated, the only one who had not shown his bravery. And he resorted as usual to bluster.

‘I’ll show you all yet,’ he proclaimed. ‘I
will
put the world of Paradise Towers to rights.’

‘Oh yes?’ Bin Liner came closer and stared into Pex’s face.

‘Yes.’ But Pex’s bravado crumbled and he had to turn away.

‘You’re a cowardly cutlet,’ Fire Escape announced triumphantly. ‘When the in-betweens went to fight, you hid.

You’ll always hide. Always.’

And the three Kangs started a chant: ‘He’s a cowardly cutlet, he’s a cowardly cutlet...’

Mel watched from afar in some distress. ‘They shouldn’t treat him like that.’

The Doctor patted her shoulder. ‘What good will it do if you try to stop them?’ But he too was depressed by what was happening. ‘It’s the problem of Paradise Towers in a nutshell,’

he sighed. ‘The Red Kangs didn’t trust the Blue Kangs. None of them trust the Caretakers. The Rezzies, from your account, prey on whoever they can and trust no-one either. And all of them despise poor old Pex.’ If Mel didn’t know that the Doctor never despaired, she might have thought he was near despairing now.

It all looked so bleak. ‘The Great Architect must be delighted,’

he added bitterly. ‘How ever are we going to unite the people of Paradise Towers to defeat him?’

‘He’s a cowardly cutlet! He’s a cowardly cutlet!’

The rest of the Kangs had joined in now and their mocking chant echoed round the swimming pool. Pex could bear it no longer. He got to his feet and started to walk away from his tormentors towards the main door of the pool.

Mel got to her feet and ran to him. ‘Pex,’ she called, ‘don’t go. Pex –’

But Pex had suddenly stopped half way to the exit. He stared ahead of him disbelievingly. Everyone else stared too, following his gaze. None of them could quite believe their eyes.

Maddy, the Rezzie, was standing at the entrance to the pool, her plump face anxious and her manner distinctively self-conscious as she felt the eyes of all the Kangs staring at her.

Behind her stood a few other Residents, older and less vocal, sharing her embarrassment.

It took her a moment to find her voice.

‘I – that is we, the Rezzies,’ she began, nervously clearing her throat, ‘the remaining Rezzies that is – wanted to talk to you.’ She put out an appealing hand to her silent audience. ‘I think – I think we may need your help.’

It was the Doctor who responded first. He had been close to despair and this was the first sign that there might be hope for the divided people of Paradise Towers. He came up to Maddy and raised his hat politely. Maddy responded with a grateful curtsey.

Then he led her into the pool area and helped her to a seat even though he was conscious all the time of the hostile scowls of the Kangs trained upon her. The other Rezzies trooped in obediently behind her, and, much to Mel’s relief, Pex too decided to come back to hear what the Residents had to say.

At first Maddy spoke only in a disconnected and rather distraught way. Her timid soul lacked the toughness of Tilda and Tabby and what had been happening was almost too much for her.

‘The Cleaners must have reached about Floor 115 by now,’

she reported. The news caused consternation since their progress through the building was even swifter than any one had imagined. ‘All the Rezzies who can have moved up to higher floors,’ Maddy continued. Her face fell. ‘Unfortunately not everyone was quick enough.’

The Doctor was thoughtful. ‘And you’re sure that the person ordering the Cleaners to do this looks like the Chief Caretaker?’

Maddy nodded. If there had been any doubt before there could be none now. The Chief Caretaker was unalive but the Great Architect had used corpoelectroscopy to take over his body. No doubt for the Doctor anyway. The Kangs were not so sure.

‘Why should we believe her?’ Fire Escape pointed angrily at Maddy. ‘Rezzies are full of untruths – and Kangs.’

The other Kangs joined in. It was a sudden outpouring of long-held grudges against the Rezzies and in particular the evil ways of Tilda and Tabby, deceased. The angry babble grew in power until finally the Doctor managed to calm them down by insisting on the importance of finding out all they could about what was happening. When the Kang protest had subsided to a murmur, the Doctor turned to Maddy and beckoned her to carry on.

Maddy took her courage in her hands and started to speak again, her hands twisting nervously. ‘Of course, I know that we Residents have not always been as neighbourly as we might have been.’ She cleared her throat again. ‘But some have been worse than others and the worst have gone. Down the waste disposal chute.’

She stretched out her hands pleasingly, involving the other Rezzies in her plea. ‘Those of us who are left want to let bygones be bygones. We’re all in danger now and, well, we’re very sorry for what we did. And we won’t do it again. If we all survive that is.’ Her anxious hands stretched out timidly to include all her hearers. ‘We need each other’s help.’

It was as handsome an apology as could be expected and the Doctor turned questioningly to the listening girls. ‘Well, you Kangs,’ he demanded, ‘what do you say to that?’

The Kangs, Red and Blue, exchanged glances and then got into a huddle to consider their reaction. Maddy and the other Rezzies waited nervously for the verdict. Fortunately they did not have to wait too long. The huddle broke up and Bin Liner, who had obviously been nominated as the spokeswoman, turned to the Doctor.

‘I won’t say Rezzies are icehot,’ she announced, ‘but, yes she’s not telling untruths and yes, we’ll help each other.’

‘Is that agreed?’ The Doctor looked to the other Kangs and they nodded consent. Maddy smiled with relief and Mel started to feel the glimmer of hope growing within her.

‘How about you, Pex?’

The Doctor was determined to get the whole group working together. No-one was to be excluded. The Kangs called Pex a cowardly cutlet again but the Doctor quietened them down and asked Pex again for his consent to work with the Rezzies.

Embarrassed and unconfident though he was, he gave it.

‘All right,’ Fire Escape broke in impetuously, ‘we work with Pex, no to-do, we work with Rezzies no to-do, but the Caretakers

–’

‘Never ever!’ the Kangs cried vehemently in unison.

A new arrival coughed nervously. The conversation ceased and the assembled company craned to see who the newcomer was. It was the Deputy Chief, looking incongruous and ill-at-ease in these surroundings. He spoke tentatively at first, conscious that he would be neither welcome nor trusted. But his haggard face and haunted eyes showed that the pompous Deputy had undergone experiences that had changed his very being.

‘Excuse me –’ he began, ‘I’m sorry to intrude like this but I wondered if I might have a word with you all?’

Mel’s eyes met the Doctor’s. Much was still to be done but they had pulled themselves back from despair. They might still be able to win.

11

Kroagnon was enjoying his freedom. The torture of confinement when his ever-fertile brain could only plan but not achieve was over. There had been times when he had even wished he might be allowed to die instead of being preserved in inactive torment.

Not now. His revenge was working exactly according to plan and soon Paradise Towers would be his again.

In front of him in the Chief’s control room he had a map laid out that showed a cross-section of the Towers. Above, the screens kept him informed of how far his Cleaners had progressed in their destruction of the human creatures. And, as each floor was reclaimed for his purposes, he crossed it through on the map with a blood-red pencil. Even he was surprised by how quickly his opponents fell back before him.

He realised, of course, that all the messy creatures were moving up to the Swimming Pool Zone on Floor 304. But, luckily for him, he didn’t have to worry too much. They wouldn’t have time to make it too untidy before he destroyed them.