Doctor Who: The Blood Cell (18 page)

Clara would have charmed it. The Doctor would have shouted at it. My arsenal was rather more limited. Perhaps it would obey me – well, so the Doctor thought. Fat chance. Nothing around here had ever really obeyed me. Sweating, I crouched still in the darkness. The Custodian beyond the door showed no signs of moving away. Had it sensed me? Possibly.

I crawled back up the steps, feeling my way among the bodies, trying to see if there was anything useful in their clothes. I felt a terrible sense of revulsion at this. I’d let these people die and now I was going through their pockets. It was fairly fruitless. I found a bunch of keys, which seemed ironic.

I made my way back down the steps, thought
things through, and then, a couple of moments later, I stepped behind the staircase door and flung it open.

The Custodian glided onto the landing, illuminating the damaged staircase with the light on its fascia. It swivelled left and right, trying to locate me. Its antennae were out and snapping lethally. I threw the bunch of keys off to the left and the Custodian fired a blast as it rolled towards them. As it did so, I smashed a lump of rubble into the back of its head near the recharge port, and then another, breaking the light.

The Custodian ground back and forth, disoriented. I darted to the left, snatched up the keys and ran out of the door, closing it behind me. I fitted a key to the lock. It didn’t work. I tried another one. The fourth one worked. Sort of.

The corridor filled with the metallic clank of the Custodian grinding against the stairwell door. There’d be no way back through there. And probably more Custodians on their way.

My comm panel blipped.

It was Clara, whispering.

‘Hey you,’ she said. She was sounding very casual.

‘Where are you?’

‘I really don’t know,’ she said. ‘But you wouldn’t like it. Is the Doctor with you?’

‘No. I’m getting some things for him. He’s trying to find where you are.’

‘Right. No idea. After the last go, it knocked us out.’

‘What did?’

‘I’m going to say I haven’t a clue, because if I tried telling you, you really wouldn’t like it.’

‘Right. Are you scared?’

There was a pause.

‘Yes,’ Clara replied. ‘Please get a move on.’

‘I will do,’ I said. ‘If something’s been hiding in my prison then I … well, I need to …’

‘I’m fairly certain it’s broken a few rules. You can give it a lecture.’

‘Thanks. Stay safe.’ I said.

‘Uh-huh. Get the Doctor. Hurry.’ Clara ended the conversation.

While we’d been talking, I’d been making my way down to Level 4 using the gangways in the Prisoner Accommodation.

The whole cell area was eerie and unsettled. It had never seemed a cheery place, but now, empty, the Prison seemed terrifyingly dead. It had been designed to be a cramped space, full of life. It was now utterly lacking even the menacing patrol of Custodians.

My feet echoed against the metal stairs like thunderclaps, but somehow I made it down to Level 4.

The Doctor’s trolley was wedging open a door. There’d clearly been a firefight in the corridor between Custodians and Guardians. One Custodian lay on its
side, case cracked, antennae twitching weakly. Several more Guardians were in crumpled heaps along the wall. It didn’t look as though the Guardians had won the battle.

In the darkness beyond the doorway, an ominous gliding was coming closer. I had to hurry.

The trolley was too damaged to move. Realising there was no way I could drag the trolley back to the Control Station, I filled my pockets with the assortment of junk, hoping one of them was the network hub controller. I made my way as quickly as I could back up to the Doctor.

The Control Station was even more of a mess. Half the TransNet room had been pulled out and patched into the terminal the Doctor was wedged under.

I dumped the components in a rattling heap on the floor.

‘Doctor, I—’

A hand shot out from under the console, grabbed a lump of metal, waved it around and then threw it away. The hand grabbled on among the junk.

‘Doctor, listen, Clara and Bentley, they’re alive – they called me—’

‘Network hub controller!’ The Doctor sprung up from underneath the desk, holding one of the items I’d brought. He hastily wired it in between the TransNet system and the terminal he’d been working on. ‘Thing
about your TransNet hook-up is that it’s rubbish at conveying a signal all the way to the HomeWorld. But it should be pretty good at using the local Sensor Array. I just need to get the sensors to look inwards instead of outwards and … and …’

There was a loud
thunk
from the terminal he’d been working on. The illuminated prison map went dark.

I looked at the Doctor. ‘Clara said they’re in a lot of trouble.’

‘Of course she would. They are.’ The Doctor continued to stare at the blank screen. ‘Come on … come on … come on …’

It flickered.

‘UPDATING … UPDATING …’

The Doctor made hopeful motions.

The screen refreshed again.

‘Currently installing update 1 of 83. Please do not turn this terminal off during this process.’

The Doctor gave a howl of frustration. I thought about saying something, but he silenced me with a glare.

‘It’s not a delay,’ he muttered to himself. ‘It’s a really good chance to work out what I’m going to do next.’ The prison map sprang into life – a picture of the whole asteroid, the detail gradually filling out as the Sensor Array finished its sweep.

The Doctor gave a roar of triumph. ‘Can you see that?’

At first glance it looked pretty much the same to me.

‘Oh, brilliant!’ cried the Doctor, ‘On the way here, I was counting the steps. Between Level 7 and Level 5 … I noticed there were a few more steps – a bit more space between levels.’ He jabbed a finger at a shady area of the map I’d not noticed before.

‘It may just be barrier shielding,’ I suggested.

‘Barrier shielding against what?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Solar radiation?’

‘Piffle.’ The Doctor pointed at the map jubilantly. That shaded area was gradually clearing as the Sensor Array finished its sweep. It showed a chamber in between Levels 5 and 6.

‘What is that?’

The Doctor didn’t answer. He was already lurching towards the door. ‘When you went down to Level 6 you found it empty, didn’t you?’ He snatched up a semi-functioning tablet which he appeared to have stuck together with tape. ‘It’s where you put the prisoners you wanted to forget about. Which means that you wouldn’t notice if it was being gradually emptied …’

‘What?’

‘The cells had been tidied, all trace of their occupants removed. They’d been empty for some time.’ The Doctor held up the tablet, waving around a vast array of spreadsheets I’m fairly certain he shouldn’t have
been able to access. ‘I told you to check the logs. These are the dates on which power fluctuations occurred. And this graph shows the dates when hopeless cases were transferred down to Level 6. They match pretty closely, don’t they?’

We got to the stairwell, and he started limping as fast as he could down it. His eyes glinted in the dark. ‘I’m very much afraid you’ve been feeding something for a long time.’

‘And that’s what’s got Clara?’

The Doctor nodded. ‘Something very hungry.’

Infuriatingly, we didn’t go straight to Level 6. Instead the Doctor led us to the medical wing. Abesse was stood by the door, guarding it with a rifle. She saluted when I appeared.

‘Good of you to show up, Governor,’ she said drily. She hefted up the gun. ‘I took this from a fleeing Guardian. Power-pack fully charged. He’d not even tried firing it. He just ran straight into the arms of a Custodian, so he didn’t get far.’

‘Well, then, I’m pleased you’re alive, 203. Er … Abesse.’

Abesse saluted the Doctor, a little less sarcastically. ‘I’ve followed your instructions, sir,’ she said to him.
SIR?

‘Your instructions?’ I boggled.

The Doctor acknowledged the salute. ‘Thank you,
Major. Where’s the patient?’

Abesse led us to the back of the sick bay.

‘I thought you didn’t like people with guns?’ I said.

‘I’m flexible in a crisis,’ he admitted. ‘And anyway … Abesse is good people. She thinks before she shoots.’

‘She’s a mercenary,’ I hissed.

Abesse heard me. She turned and smiled dangerously at both of us. ‘Tell me more,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ continued the Doctor, ‘Abesse is a mercenary. Which means that she has no agenda other than wanting to live.’

‘True,’ said Abesse, and raised her gun towards me. I tried not to flinch, and failed. ‘Well, perhaps a tiny agenda,’ she admitted, and lowered the gun.

Abesse pulled back a curtain. Behind it, slumped in her chair, was Marianne Globus, fast asleep. Poor Marianne.

‘She’s sedated,’ announced Abesse. ‘I presume you’d like her waking?’

The Doctor considered the slumbering form. ‘When she’s awake, she’s in agony, isn’t she?’ His voice could be very gentle sometimes.

Abesse nodded. ‘Her condition is getting worse.’

The Doctor stepped forward. ‘Well then, let’s not wake her,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll just try and talk to her telepathically.’

As though people said that all the time.

Abesse shot him an uncertain look. The same look
I’d worn since I’d first met Prisoner 428. Were any of us right to trust him?

His hand rested softly on an unblemished area of Marianne’s forehead and his eyes closed in deep contemplation. He let out a long, steady breath. Somewhere, a long way away, lost in a hopefully dreamless sleep, Marianne stirred. Her hand twitched slightly. Her dribbling mouth made a tiny murmur.

The Doctor nodded to himself and then closed his eyes. A muscle in the side of his cheek twitched. Apart from that, the rest of him was still.

The Doctor spoke.

‘You’re all the way over there, Marianne. It’s all right. You can stay there. If you want to. It’s fine. Between you and me there’s a lot of pain. Some of it mine, I will admit. Most of it yours. It’s all right. You don’t have to cross it. I’ll come to you. No, don’t worry. It’s fine. I’ll bring biscuits.’

The slight twitch in his cheek became more pronounced. He let out another deep breath, ragged as the edge of saw. All the time, the Doctor’s voice, soothing and delicate continued. I noticed his lips weren’t moving.

‘Do you mind if I join you? There seems enough room for two over there. Yes. So. Hello. We’ve not been properly introduced have we? You’re the famous Marianne Globus. Well, I’m the Doctor. Pleased to meet you. It’s been a while since you’ve had a visitor,
hasn’t it? Well, then, let’s do all the gossip shall we? Let me see—

‘No, no, it’s all right. There’s no need to cry. There’s no need. It’s all right. Come here. This isn’t really a huggy body, but what’s the harm, just once, eh? There now. It’s fine, Marianne. What happened to you was bad. But no one’s fault. It was an accident. You didn’t deserve it. No, no matter what you did. Listen – we all do bad things. But we also do good things. And that’s the fun stuff. Always think about the bacon sandwich and not the washing-up.’

He frowned again. ‘Oh … oh I see. Really? I’m so sorry. I’ll get back to that. No. It’s a promise. I will deal with it. So, yes. Of course I’m here because I need your help. I know I said I’d brought biscuits, but that was just me using my charm. Oh, shut up. I do have charm. This is me doing charming. It just gets mistaken for indigestion. Normally by Clara.

‘Let me tell you about Clara. She’s one that’s worth saving. Once I got so lost she walked the universe looking for me. So, the least I can do is find her in a cold lump of space rock. And I need your help for that. Because of what’s down there. You’ve seen it. You’ve survived it. Which makes you amazing and very important. So I’m wondering if you’ll come with me? Sounds like we’ve both got a score to settle.

‘You will? Brilliant! Come on then, Marianne Globus, let’s get out of here.’

He gently took hold of the back of her chair, where Marianne met the base of a Custodian, and set off.

If I’d ever fooled myself that I was in command of The Prison, well, I really wasn’t now. I was just tailing behind this strange man, pushing all that remained of a once good friend of mine, the two of them guarded over by Abesse. The mercenary with a really big gun she was just itching to use. I didn’t even have a gun. I know the Doctor said he didn’t approve of them, but perhaps if I had one, then I could have helped. Even though I’d never fired a gun.

We made it down a level before the Custodians came for us. They waited until we reached a hallway. Walls on every side. They emerged, gliding from docking ports, surrounding us.

Abesse started firing.

The Doctor was shouting at her, telling her not to. But she was a trained mercenary. Mercenaries sometimes act purely on finely honed instinct. Her bullets rammed into the carapaces of the machines. They juddered but kept on coming.

The Doctor was launching into a speech about it being a waste of bullets, not that all bullets weren’t a waste or something. You know, sometimes, he could be a bit monotonous. When I ruled the HomeWorld System, you’d get people like that coming in to see you from time to time. Open Government. You’d
dodge most of the meetings, but it looked good to see the odd crank. Funny that. If I’d met the Doctor in real life, I’d have run a mile. But suddenly, right here, trapped in a dying space prison surrounded by lethal robots, he seemed quite the best person to be standing next to. Even if he did like the sound of his own voice.

The Custodians moved towards us, gliding and bumping, the bullets whizzing off their bodies. Their antennae were out, claws and pincers snapping, blasters charging. The air crackled dangerously. They’d electrified their casings.

I looked at poor Marianne, lost in distant dreams in her chair. She was almost smiling. For once, she wouldn’t feel a thing. Not when the end came. That seemed a good thing. Poor Marianne. I’m so sorry.

The Custodians closed in.

What happened next was a bit of a surprise.

We will ignore Abesse catching me in the shoulder with a stray blast. She really didn’t mean to, and anyway, it was more of a flesh wound. It was simply that she didn’t expect me to suddenly walk forward and stand in front of her gun. Between her and the Custodians.