Doctor Who: Bad Therapy (20 page)

Once loved, now abandoned, like forgotten children’s toys. The Doctor smiled grimly to himself. Julia was speaking again, he struggled to listen to what she was saying.

‘Ned became more rebellious and difficult – reacting to some deep desire in Benjamin no doubt – daring him to do increasingly mischievous and dangerous stunts.’ She paused and took a deep breath before continuing. ‘Benjamin was killed when Ned encouraged him to climb on to the roof of the Institute.’

There were tears welling in her eyes as she spoke. ‘Our fault. My fault.’

The Doctor turned away from the Toys to look at her. ‘And so the government closed the project down?’

Julia nodded and walked over to the window. ‘We’re just mopping up now.

Most of the Toys have been destroyed. These are all that remain. Well, except for –’ she stopped herself.

The Doctor sighed as several pieces of the puzzle fell into place. ‘Except for those that escaped.’

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Julia looked startled. ‘How could you know about that?’

He joined her at the window. Outside the trees had lost most of their leaves.

No one had bothered to rake up the fallen leaves which had been left to form a soggy brown carpet on the lawns.

The Doctor put his hand gently, tentatively, on her shoulder. ‘Oh I think I’ve found your Toys. Or rather I’ve found what’s left of them.’ He told her about the mysterious killings in London. About the victims with no pasts and only one significant but new relationship in their lives. When he finished his account, he looked at her directly and asked, ‘Did you arrange the deaths of the Toys in Soho, Doctor Mannheim?’

‘No.’ She shrank back a little under the Doctor’s piercing gaze. Julia was shocked at how important the Doctor’s approval had become to her in the short time that they had known each other. ‘No, I didn’t. I didn’t know that the Toys that had escaped had reached that far.’

The Doctor’s grey eyes probed her for a long moment, and then he turned back to the window, apparently satisfied with her reply. ‘So who did? Moriah?’

‘Doctor, don’t confuse the Toys with human beings. We’re in the middle of deactivating all the Toys. Destroying them. It’s not as if they’re real. They can’t be murdered. If Moriah is deactivating the Toys which have escaped then he’s acting within his remit. But I can’t believe he could have anything to do with you being brought here or kidnapping anyone else off the streets.’

‘Can’t believe it or won’t?’ the Doctor snapped.

‘There must be a rational explanation.’ Julia was aware that she was almost pleading.

‘Of course there is,’ a new, deep voice whispered from the doorway.

Julia whirled round to face the newcomer. Moriah stood by the open door to the ward, his large body almost filling the doorway. His heavy features set into a frown. Julia was almost overcome with relief: perhaps now this whole misunderstanding could be cleared up?

‘Director,’ she began, ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you all morning. The strangest thing appears to have happened. . . ’ Her voice trailed away and she found herself completely lost for words. How could she possibly explain the events of the morning? She was searching for the right phrase – for any damn phrase! – to introduce the Doctor, when she heard a door behind her swing closed.

The Doctor had vanished.

Patsy’s plan was insanely dangerous and was going to get them all killed, but Chris hadn’t been able to come up with anything better at the time. As he lowered himself, gingerly, out of the window of the door in the guard’s van, he was suddenly deluged with alternative possibilities.

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The train must have been travelling at least sixty miles an hour. At this speed, the wind was like a hurricane, howling in his ears, ripping through his clothes, pushing him back along the side of the train. It felt as if someone had turned a firefighter’s hose on him.

He risked a quick glance up. Patsy was staring at him, a look of deep concern on her face. She gave him the thumbs up and then disappeared back inside.

This wasn’t going to work.

There was a short ladder just to the right of him, designed to give engineers access to the roof of the train. Although, Chris suspected, not usually when the train was travelling at top speed. He reached out with his right hand, leaving himself hanging from the window with his left. The ladder was just out of reach.

Typical.

He was going to have to swing for it. One handed and into the wind. No trouble. At this speed he would be torn to shreds by the ground if he fell.

Pulling up on his left arm, he threw his weight against the wind and stretched out with his right. His fingers touched the edge of the ladder, and he scrabbled desperately for a grip. For a second he thought he was going to fall back, but his grip held and he pulled himself across until he was hanging from the ladder with both hands and he anchored his feet on a rung.

For a long moment, he allowed himself to stand on the ladder, fighting against the wind which threatened to rip him from it. Then he lowered himself down until he was level with the huge metal wheels of the train. The mechanism which locked the two carriages together was huge and covered in old, dry grease. If he had a laser cutter he could burn through the old metal in seconds, allowing the last carriage to separate from the train.

But he didn’t have a laser. Only a wrench Patsy had liberated from the guard’s locker. He stepped from the ladder on to a small ledge between the two carriages. He was partially sheltered from the wind and he could concentrate on his task.

Patsy’s plan depended upon him being able to separate the guard’s van from the other carriages of the train. It had made sense in theory. She would act as bait, luring the faceless creature into the last carriage. Assuming the creature complied, she would then climb on to the roof of the train and cross on to the penultimate carriage and signal Chris to separate it from the last.

Well, it had made sense at the time.

What he wouldn’t give for his armour and fully-charged plasma rifle.

The locking mechanism was remarkably simple. Nothing more than two giant claws clenched together, like two ogres holding hands. A bolt was screwed 112

tightly through the clenched grip, keeping it in place. Chris fitted the wrench and set to work loosening it.

The bolt turned quickly and easily. Despite its dirty appearance, the thread was well greased and in a few moments the bolt twisted off, bouncing once on the undercarriage of the train before spinning away into the early morning countryside.

Now all he had to do was loosen the grip of the claws. He braced himself against the side of the last carriage and pulled. He suddenly realized that he was still sitting on the last carriage. If he did manage to separate the trains he was going to go sailing off with only Mr No-Face for company. Chris grimaced, he didn’t like the idea of that at all. He changed sides and prepared to pull at the claws again. He felt the claws begin to loosen at the same time as he noticed the ribbed cables, like gas mask pipes, running between the carriages.

The ribbed cables were vacuum tubes, part of the braking mechanism of the train. If they were ruptured and the vacuum inside disturbed, all the brakes on all of the carriages on the train would immediately be employed. Their entire purpose was to prevent carriages becoming separated and running away.

The truth struck Chris like a slap in the face. There was no way to separate the carriages without bringing the train to an emergency stop.

Someone jumped between the carriages, landing heavily on the other side.

He heard Patsy call his name. The signal.

The plan wasn’t going to work. The creature was going to be able to – He glimpsed something in a dark grey uniform leap across the gap after Patsy, finishing the thought for him. He heard it land heavily and firmly on the roof of the penultimate carriage. Chris almost dropped the wrench in his hurry to get to the ladder and climb on to the roof.

The wind was harsher, tears streamed from his eyes. The roof of the train was wet and slippery, its surface broken every few metres by torpedo-shaped ventilators which protruded a few inches into the air. The creature had its back to him, advancing on Patsy, who was trying to back away as fast as she could without risking slipping on the wet surface.

He shouted obscenities at it, trying to attract its attention. He wasn’t even sure whether it had the ability to hear at all. If it did hear his words, it didn’t react to them. It kept stalking Patsy, one of its metal spears held high in one hand, the other stretched out in front of itself for balance.

Chris started to run. It was ridiculously dangerous, the power of the wind threatening to whip him from the roof. His leather-soled shoes kept threatening to slide out from under him. Even if he caught up with them, it was only going to take one punch to send him sailing from the train.

Up ahead, the creature made a lunge at Patsy; she threw herself back, landing awkwardly. It had a hold of one of her ankles and was starting to pull her 113

towards itself.

Goddess, it was going to kill her in front of his eyes. Why had he listened to the Doctor? Why hadn’t he sneaked an energy weapon out of the TARDIS

with him like. . . like Roz always used to.

Roz had never really believed that you could fight evil without weapons, without killing in turn. She’d always thought the Doctor’s ideals were just so many words, that he was out of touch with reality. Live by the sword and die by the sword. That had been her motto.

And she had.

A long desperate snarl of grief erupted out of Chris. He threw the heavy wrench over-arm, it spun on its axis straight down the centre of the roof, looking like some bizarre Samurai weapon before striking the uniformed figure squarely in the base of its neck.

The creature snarled in its scratchy, unfinished voice. It dropped Patsy angrily and she slid to the edge of the roof, one leg slipping dangerously over the side. It spun around to face its assailant.

‘Come on then!’ Chris roared, his words lost as the whistle of the train was sounded. ‘Come and get me!’

It ran towards him. Its long, powerful legs hitting the roof with such force that Chris felt the reverberation in his body. Patsy had dragged herself back on to the centre of the roof, for some reason she was looking away, in the direction the train was heading. Still, as long as he took the creature with him when he fell from the train she would be safe.

He couldn’t take his eyes off the creature’s head as it raced towards him. It was perfectly smooth, no blemishes at all. Just smooth blank skin. It reached for him.

Chris put up his fists.

‘Get down,’ Patsy screamed. ‘Hit the deck.’

Distracted, he looked beyond the empty face that was almost upon him, to the mouth of the dark tunnel that had already swallowed half the train.

He threw himself on to his back, just as the creature reached him. For a second, he saw it lean over him, spear raised, snarling in triumph –

– and then the creature and sky disappeared, and there was only the roof of the tunnel – a dark blur, inches above his face. Just that and the deafening sound of the train echoing in the confined space.

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8

Against Nature

The doors were marked RESEARCH WING: NO ADMITTANCE in large unfriendly letters. The Doctor pushed through them without breaking his stride. A hospital orderly was trying to come through the swing doors from the other side and the Doctor knocked the door back into his face, sending them both sprawling to the ground.

They sat on the floor trying to get their bearings for a moment. The orderly –

a spotty young man with neat side-parting – took one look at the pyjamas the Doctor was wearing and exclaimed, ‘Oi, you’re not supposed to be in here.

How did you get past the no admittance sign?’

The Doctor made a show of looking bemused. ‘I walked straight past it,’ he quipped, as he scrambled to his feet.

‘Hey, come back here,’ the orderly shouted after the Doctor, who was already racing further into the restricted area. The Doctor had skidded around a corner before the orderly had even climbed to his feet.

Come on, Doctor, he told himself as he heard the young man start to give chase. You can’t play hide and seek around the building all day. A plan is required. Something to keep you out of Moriah’s clutches until you can find out more about him. Find out what makes him tick and then fiddle with the mechanism.

And I still have to rescue Jack.

One thing at a time, my dear Doctor, one thing at a time. The Doctor found a flight of stairs and ascended, taking the steps three at a time. He was no longer exactly sure where he was in relation to the ward and the mortuary. He was only certain that he was moving deeper into the heart of the building. The staircase opened out on to a quiet landing which smelt faintly of disinfectant.

A series of doors led off on either side of the corridor.

Someone started up the stairs behind him. The Doctor scurried from door to door with no success. The last door opened when he tried it, and without checking what lay behind it, the Doctor slipped inside.

Darkness. He heard footsteps in the corridor and the sound of locked doors rattling as they were tried. The Doctor held his breath and pressed his ear to the door, listening for any indication that the footsteps were approaching his 115

bolt-hole.

The footsteps came closer, until they sounded as if they were right outside, and then faded away. The Doctor let out the breath, silently.

Feeling the side of the wall until his fingers located a light switch, the Doctor squinted in the sudden brightness provided by a naked bulb. He blinked away the paisley spots in front of his eyes and then gasped out loud as he took in his surroundings.

The room he had secreted himself inside was waist-deep in bodies. The smooth, characterless bodies of the therapeutic mannequins. They were piled carelessly on top of one another. Arms and legs jutted out from the human mountain in such a way that it was almost impossible to distinguish which limbs belonged to which torso. Their skin was bruised and soft, like overripe fruit. Each of them had two neat surgical wounds on either side of their necks which were all too familiar to the Doctor. The atmosphere in the room was thick and sweet – almost nauseatingly so. It was the smell of flesh slowly putrefying.