Doctor Who_ Cat's Cradle_ Warhead Part 14

And he was amazed at how hard the girl hit him.

The Doctor hurried up the stairs and along the frayed ragged carpeting in the hallway. He stopped and looked in through the open door of the bathroom. The entire expanse of the tiled floor was awash. Ace was kneeling in the halfempty tub, bent over the pale boy. The Doctor cleared his throat and Ace turned to look at him.

'Oh, yes, I forgot,' said the Doctor. 'Be careful he doesn't drown.'

'No s.h.i.+t,' said Ace.

'Is everything all right?'

'Well, he's definitely recovering.' She climbed out of the tub and began towelling her hair. They looked down at the boy, lying back in the old enamelled bathtub, head safely above the water level now. His eyes were shut and thin strings of water were running out of his nose and mouth.

'He's gone back to sleep.'

'Yes,' said the Doctor. 'He'll have intermittent flashes of wakefulness followed by periods of sleep until he recovers fully from the effects of the gel.'

'Which is when?' said Ace. She reached down into the bathwater between the boy's feet and pulled the plug. The tub began to drain with moist gurgling sounds.

'A day or so,' said the Doctor. 'Plenty of time before we leave.'

'Leave?' said Ace.

'Good idea, emptying the bathwater. We'll just let him lie there until he dries off.' The Doctor turned and left the bathroom.

'Leave for where?' said Ace. She pulled on a robe and knotted it around her waist, striding out of the bathroom after the Doctor.

Vincent lay in the drained bathtub, eyes rolling under closed pale eyelids, snoring faintly.

In the living room all the windows had turned to mirrors. It was dark outside now, full night. Ace felt the jetlag and the night on the airport floor catching up with her. Her shoulder was aching in earnest. Her feet were wet on the Persian carpet and she was beginning to feel how cold the house was, a chill settling on her after the shower and the exertion of saving the boy.

'You said we're going to leave soon. Where are we going?'

'New York,' said the Doctor.

'Fair enough. Who is the tumescent adolescent upstairs?'

The Doctor perched on the arm of an old sprung armchair. He reached down under the fat dusty cus.h.i.+ons, as if he was looking for something. 'I'll tell you all about him.'

'Good.'

'I'll tell you about him very, very soon.'

'Very, very good.'

'But first I'd best tell you about someone else.' The Doctor tugged something out from under a cus.h.i.+on in the armchair. He pa.s.sed it to Ace. It was a thin magazine, printed on cheap paper. The t.i.tle was Seeing Seeing.

'What is this?'

'Turn to page twentyseven,' said the Doctor. 'Do you see the photos?'

On page 27 was an article ent.i.tled 'A Doorway to Other Worlds?' Three large photographs were set above the text. Ace didn't need to do more than glance at them. 'It's this house. Someone's been up on the hillside.' She looked at the photographs and estimated the position of the photographer. 'Up in our orchard with a long lens.'

'That's right, it was me,' said the Doctor. 'I wrote the article as well.'

'"A Doorway to Other Worlds?"' said Ace.

'That publication is what you might call a fanzine. It is sold to a certain, small, specific audience.'

'The Crows,' said Ace. 'The Witchkids, that lot.'

'Young people who are adopting new belief systems. A blend of ecological activism with older ways of thinking.'

'What you're talking about is black magic,' said Ace.

'Sorcery, to be more accurate,' said the Doctor. 'In any case, that article was written to appeal to a special kind of individual. It was calculated to attract their attention to this house and to provide them with just enough information to find it.'

'Find it?'

'We have a battle to fight, Ace. The boy in the bathtub is part of it. But so is this other person. They are vital to my plan. I put information into that magazine that would act as a lure to someone with a certain profile of beliefs and obsessions. Exactly the kind of person who would be most useful to us. Think of it as a kind of job advertis.e.m.e.nt.'

'I don't suppose you want to tell me a little more about the applicant.'

'Well,' said the Doctor. 'They are likely to be violently opposed to the destruction of this planet. They will be full of anger and aggression, coupled with a belief in supernatural forces. Of course, as a result of this, the person is likely to be somewhat unstable.'

'Oh boy,' said Ace. She sat down in the armchair beside the Doctor. 'Unstable and potentially dangerous,' she said.

'Potentially very dangerous.'

'Well, thanks for telling me. I don't suppose I've got a day or two to catch up on my sleep?'

'I'm afraid not.'

'Okay. When is he turning up?'

'It may be a she instead of a he,' said the Doctor. 'And she's already here.'

'Here in the sense of here in the general neighbourhood?'

'Here in the sense of upstairs in the bathroom.'

Justine wasn't sure if the boy in the bathtub was alive or dead. She leaned over the bathtub and reached out to check for a pulse in his throat. As she did so the boy's hand drifted up blindly and collided with her own. Justine didn't flinch. She watched pale fingers open and slowly close around hers. She felt the chill in those fingers.

And then she felt something else.

Vincent's eyes wouldn't focus properly. He closed them again. The enamelled iron bathtub was cold and hard against his body, but in a strange way it was comfortable. He felt drowsy. He was holding someone's hand and that was comforting. He tried to open his eyes again. His eyelids stuck together, some gummy substance gluing them shut. Then they popped open. Transparent clots of crud swam in his eyes for a moment before his vision steadied. He could see the girl. She was wearing clothes now. No, it wasn't the same girl. This girl had darker eyes and paler hair. Dirty and tangled. She was looking down at him, holding his hand. Her grip tighter and tighter.

Somewhere deep in Vincent's mind the seed of a storm began to stir.

He tried to let go, to relax his hand, but his muscles didn't obey. It was as if he'd forgotten how to operate them. Then he felt a tremor. A stirring of feeling around his knuckles and his fingers, a sensation of unknotting. And he could move his hand again. He pulled hard, tugging with all the strength of his arm, but she wasn't going to let go. The girl felt the jerky movement and just tightened her grip. She was far stronger than he was. Vincent pulled again, then gave up. His head lolled. The girl was no longer in his visual field. Now all he could see was the bathtub enamel, a blank ivory landscape curving away to infinity at the edges of his vision. He closed his eyes.

It was going to happen again and there was nothing he could do about it.

His body jerked. He forced himself to fight back. It was like trying to lift something heavy underwater. He twisted his head, pulling his cheek away from the pleasant cool smoothness of the tub. He forced his eyes open and stared dreamily up at his hand and the girl's, still locked together. He stared at intertwined lingers, his clean and pale, hers dirty and tanned. The girl's fingernails were bitten to the quick. His were long and translucent and softened from the long months in the barrel. He could see them bending back easily where they touched her. He could see the pale blue skin under those nails.

The sensation of holding hands and the colour blue.

Memories stirred in Vincent's mind. They were stronger than the fear. And they weren't his memories.

Feeling a hand in his and seeing the colour blue. And then he seeing something else.

Blue.

Blue shoes.

Tiny blue shoes on tiny feet.

She's very proud of her shoes. She is wearing her favourite shoes. She is looking down, watching her own feet as she walks. Her mother had told her not to do this because she might trip over. So she looks up again, a wellmannered little girl. Looks around herself. The world is huge. Grownups walk past, benign giants on incomprehensible missions. Ignoring little kids the way they do. Sometimes you wonder if they even know you are there.

In the bathtub Vincent Wheaton twisted and shook. It was like the time Calvin touched him, but much more intense. Much worse. He felt himself sinking into the girl's memories. She is seven. She is seven. Experiencing the feel of childhood again. Experiencing the feel of childhood again. Her name is Justine. Her name is Justine. Childhood's simplified desires and the furnacehot intensity of vision. Childhood's simplified desires and the furnacehot intensity of vision.

Her name was Justine.

A hand was clasping Justine's. Her friend Cheryl. Cheryl was only six but that was all right. She was very grownup for six and there was no shame in being seen with her. Justine and Cheryl were coming home from school, walking out of the tube station.

Justine loved this moment. The station was made of old concrete, paint peeling off the dirty walls. It was grey and dead and cold and shadowy. But as you stepped out of the station everything changed. There was a burst of green. Trees grew thickly along the streets that led to the station. There were big houses and outside the houses there were trees. The houses belonged to rich people, her father said. When the trees were in leaf there was nothing but green as far as you could see. Justine loved walking under the towering green trees. She could feel the thick weight of leaves above her head. A ceiling of green to protect her.

They had taught her about trees in school, how they drew food and water up into their long bodies, into their graceful branches and leaves. And the way they sucked up bad things and dirt in the air and breathed out clean air.

Justine was walking under the trees. School was over and she was free and she was walking with Cheryl. She loved this moment.

It didn't last long, however.

Halfway down the street from the station you began to hear the traffic. No matter how slowly you walked the trees only lasted five minutes. Today it was less because it was Cheryl's brother's birthday and Cheryl was in a hurry to get home. Five minutes of green, then you arrived at the big road. The road they had to cross every day. Five minutes among the trees, then perhaps fifteen minutes waiting for a break in the traffic.

Today Justine didn't wait. She saw a gap and ran straight across. She was laughing with triumph when she reached the other side. The traffic was an enemy and today she had beaten it. She was standing on the far side of the road, almost home, laughing, but she was standing alone. Where was Cheryl? Justine stopped laughing. She didn't remember letting go of Cheryl's hand. The road was dangerous. Her mother and father told her that twice a day, but they didn't really need to. Justine could feel that it was dangerous. Something to be feared and hated. Now cars sped past her roaring, sweeping their stink over her. A little girl standing at the roadside. Standing alone.

Where was Cheryl? Justine spun around, searching for her friend. Then she stopped.

On the far side of the road Cheryl was standing, laughing at Justine's confusion. She waved at Justine, then leaned out, looked at the approaching cars. There was another brief break in the traffic coming up. Justine looked, too. There was a moment's silence on the road. Fumes danced in the heat, twisting images in the distance. The small bright colours of cars, far off and approaching. The rising sound of powerful engines began to fill the silence.

Justine squinted into the gritty oilheavy air. The cars were a long way off but they were approaching very fast. Cheryl was looking at them, too. She hesitated, then stepped out into the traffic lane, hesitated again and then stepped back on to the roadside. Justine decided to call to her, to tell her to wait. She took a deep breath of the roadside air and began to cough, the fumes burning her throat and eyes. But Cheryl was back in the road again now, running towards her.

There was a long scream.

But it was all right.

It wasn't Cheryl. It was a car making the noise. It was the breaks breaks of the car. Justine's mother had told her the word. Justine never forgot it because she imagined something breaking, something precious which you could never repair again. of the car. Justine's mother had told her the word. Justine never forgot it because she imagined something breaking, something precious which you could never repair again.

Now there was that screaming sound but it was all right. It wasn't Cheryl. It was the breaks breaks. The breaks breaks stopped a car. They would stop the cars before anything happened to Cheryl. Things were happening quite quickly now. Where was Cheryl? Justine squinted out through the thick fumes, looking out into the road. The long mechanical scream of the car was ending. There was a noise like something hot hissing on a stove. It was the noise of tyre rubber on the road surface. Then a heavy wet sound. stopped a car. They would stop the cars before anything happened to Cheryl. Things were happening quite quickly now. Where was Cheryl? Justine squinted out through the thick fumes, looking out into the road. The long mechanical scream of the car was ending. There was a noise like something hot hissing on a stove. It was the noise of tyre rubber on the road surface. Then a heavy wet sound.

Justine kept looking for Cheryl. Cars were stopping. Other cars kept moving, driving up on the pavement so they could get past the blockage. After all, this was supposed to be the highspeed route out of London. Justine was looking back and forth, twisting her neck, blinking her eyes in the blurred stinging air. Then she saw Cheryl. Cheryl was on the same side of the road as her. The safe side. The home side. Very close to Justine. In fact, Justine had seen her several times as she swept her eyes around. But it had taken a little time for Justine to accept that this was Cheryl, lying here just in front of her. To accept that Cheryl could have been hammered into this blunt, b.l.o.o.d.y shape.

When the ambulances eventually arrived they couldn't do anything about Cheryl. But they gave Justine an injection that stopped her screaming.

In the early hours of the following morning Justine's parents found that her bed was empty. After a frantic search they realized she wasn't anywhere in the house. She was in the garage. They found her standing there, swaying with the sedative, eyes a little feverish. She was staring at the family car and talking about brakes and braking. Or at least, that's what Justine's parents thought.

Breaks will stop the cars.

A tenpound sledgehammer was best. When it hit the windscreen of a car the whole big slab of reinforced gla.s.s crunched up in the middle and released at the edges.

Justine is standing on a bridge above a motorway and thinking about sledgehammers. Justine is seventeen now and desires are no longer so simple. The intensity of vision has been blunted, so drugs are essential to recapture it.

In an empty bathtub in an old house Vincent Wheaton was twisting on cold porcelain. A girl was holding his hand.

And the girl was smiling.

The tenpound sledgehammer is a weighty fist of metal on a strong wood handle. Your muscles feel good as you swing it up. Justine was swinging it up. Justine swung it at three in the morning until her arms were tired. Running down the carchoked streets of West Kensington. And it feels even better as you bring it down. But there were other methods.

Petrol bombs, for instance.

The kind you make with three tablespoons of sand, a milk bottle and a piece of cloth. The kind Justine had lined up beside her elbow on the concrete ledge of the motorway bridge. Three days after her seventeenth birthday. Watching the endless stream of traffic pouring out of London below her. The Friday night rush. Justine is lighting a match.

Now Vincent writhes in the dry bathtub. Justine holds on to his hand, knuckles white and popping with strain. In Vincent's mind is a firestorm of anger and the image of cars, neverending lines of cars.

But the cars are beginning to burn.

And then the Bad Thing happens.

'Jesus Christ, what was that?' said Ace.

The explosion blew the front window of the sitting room in on the Doctor and Ace. The Doctor was standing in front of Ace and facing her, nearest to the window. His body created an impact shadow, sheltering her from the fine spray of broken gla.s.s. She was fighting her way up out of the armchair, the gla.s.s spilling from her hair, running towards the front door. The Doctor was already there.

It was pitch dark outside but Ace didn't have any trouble seeing. Flames were rising into the air from a scorched tangle of wreckage on the gravel driveway. From the size and shape of it, Ace recognized the remains of the Saab. There was a hole in the wooden wall of the garage where the car had been slammed through. Ace didn't have any problem working out what had happened because now another hole was punched through the west wall, the Kharman Ghia emerging in a spray of bricks and torn planking. The small sports car went spinning across the garden, tearing lawn, slamming the earth with a wet pounding sound and clawing up clods of mud and gra.s.s. It was as if a giant foot had kicked it and sent it splintering through the garage wall. The car tore through a hedge and kept rolling away from the house, towards the orchard on the hillside. It became an indistinct shape, lost in the darkness, but not for long. The petrol tank ruptured and ignited, first in a twisting halo of pale blue, then in hot orange flame. The car collided with a tree, bounced back and lay still on the lawn, burning.

There was a creaking sound behind Ace. She turned away from the open door and looked up at the staircase. The firelight from the burning Saab shone through the window on the landing. Standing there was a girl in jeans and a leather jacket. The Doctor came back in through the front door and stood beside Ace, looking up at the girl on the stairs. She stood watching them, ready to run at any moment. The Doctor looked at the girl, then out the door at the burning cars, then back at the girl again.

'Excellent,' he said, smiling at Ace.