Doctor Who - Downtime Part 30

' You You are in the computer?' are in the computer?'

The head gave a disembodied nod. 'But I'm still me. Kate, please just follow my commands. I can find my way round in here, but I can't control it.'

She sighed. 'I don't know. I'm not even used to this system.'

'But I I am,' said the boy's ghost. 'Ever heard of automatic writing? Put your fingers on the keys.' am,' said the boy's ghost. 'Ever heard of automatic writing? Put your fingers on the keys.'

She obeyed and watched, startled, as her fingers started to move independently of her own will.

The screen darkened and started to scroll with a rush of data.

Harrods stood back from the lift doors, his fingers aching from trying to force them apart.

'It's no good, sir. I reckon something's jamming them.'

The indicator above the door was lit only on the number three.

'Typical,' complained the Brigadier. 'Blasted boy always disappears when you want him.'

As if in answer, the lift doors clanked and ground slowly open. The two pa.s.sengers stepped out into the hallway relieved to be out of the cage.

The corridor outside was equally unwelcoming. With all the gloom, they might have been in a bas.e.m.e.nt or crypt. The air was muggy. The web-shrouded walls creaked and rumbled like sleepy beasts shifting restlessly in their stalls.

The Brigadier hefted a fire-extinguisher from its place on the wall. 'Better than nothing,' he said and set off slowly along the pa.s.sage.

A worrying thought had just occurred to him: if Daniel Hinton now existed only in the systems of the New World computer, what would happen to the boy if the computer was switched off?

He wondered if he was going mad.

'Sir?' called Harrods. 'Where are we going, sir?'

'Don't worry, Sergeant. I have someone working on it.'

The Brigadier eyed a security camera on the ceiling. 'As long as he doesn't lead us on too long a dance.'

Harrods was having to scuttle to keep up with him. He was grinning to himself 'Ever see Wilson, Kepple and Betty, sir?'

Lethbridge-Stewart wondered if they were both going mad.

'The variety act? Two funny little men in Egyptian clobber doing sand dances? And a girl doing a sort of exotic belly dance?'

'Oh yes, sir. My favourites, they were.'

'Really,' the Brigadier said, trying to sound interested.

They had turned left, left and left and were in severe danger of turning left again and ending up where they had started.

If Hinton was acting as their spirit guide, where was he when they needed him?

'Three times I saw them, sir. And every time the Betty was a different person.'

'Three different, Bettys.' The Brigadier laughed appreciatively. But he doubted that Time Lords toured the universe performing novelty acts on the variety circuit.

On the other hand...

'Sir!'

Harrods was crouched by a doorway marked 'NW FM'.

There was a shape inside. The figure of a man dressed in a Hawaiian shirt with headphones draped round his neck. He was slumped against the gla.s.s, covered in swathes of web and his dead eyes were staring wide open.

The door was jammed tight.

'Gets worse, doesn't it, sir?'

'It does indeed, Sergeant. Let's keep moving.'

Faced with the opportunity of going left again, the Brigadier opted for right. The way was closed.

Since there was no promised clue from Hinton, he settled on left instead.

A deep chanting noise was emanating from the gloom.

Before they reached the lift, they came to another viewing window in the wall. It looked into a large room resembling a language lab. In the dim light they could make out row upon row of computer terminals with a Chilly seated in an att.i.tude of contemplation at each. The same web was draped over the students and the machines. It caught the light of the terminals, glittering malevolently as the Chillys kept up their chanted dirge.

'Like a morgue,' whispered Harrods.

'Like a trap,' corrected the Brigadier. He could see that several of the Chillys held silvered spheres on their laps. Some of them were starting to rise from their places.

Where the h.e.l.l is Hinton? he thought.

'Come on,' he said. 'Back to the lift!'

It had been a struggle to get the lift as far as Floor Three.

Almost as soon as the Brigadier had left the confines of the lift, Danny had felt a new command in the system.

The lift was being summoned to Floor Eight, the top level.

Danny put a countermand option through Kate's fingers, but his momentary lapse in concentration had let things slip.

The doors closed and the lift went up unhindered.

He fed Kate a command to stop the doors opening at the top, but was overruled again.

She was a good medium for his thoughts. She had let her mind loosen, allowing him open access to move her fingers over the keys. No longer confined to his human body, no longer genetically challenged, he found that his thoughts were freed up too. It was the flying he had always wanted. He was able to think so fast now that he was afraid of hurting Kate.

He fed her another instruction: a command to stop the lift in its tracks.

He sensed the doors closing on the eighth floor. He put in an override command to open again.

He felt the doors judder. The logic commands were counteracting each other. He wanted to keep this up for as long as possible, but he heard Kate gasp.

'I can't move my fingers,' she protested. 'What is it?'

'Hold it there!' he snapped. He had to stop whatever was in the lift from descending.

He knew what was in the lift. He still felt the tug of what had once been his body. The Intelligence's powers had widened. It no longer needed to construct robots to serve as its heavy brigade. The university had a whole section devoted to nanotechnology and atomic engineering. The Intelligence could overwhelm and trans.m.u.te any form into its instrument.

For a moment, Danny was stifled. A shrill repeating beat swamped his thoughts. His chest burned with an inner fire. His man's shape was thick with sinew and fur. He could only move clumsily in the confines of the imposition. Through red eyes, he saw the metal walls of the lift and the doors juddering back and forth in front of him as he struck at them.

With an animal roar, he broke free again. He was back at Kate's shoulder, forcing the claw shapes out of his head.

His concentration had slipped once more. In the computer systems, he felt the doors slam shut and the lift begin its descent.

'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,' Kate was saying.

By now, the Intelligence would be hunting him too.

The Brigadier and Harrods reached the lift and saw the floor indicator descend from eight to seven. The mechanism was emitting confused electronic grindings.

'Brigadier! Get back!'

He saw a woman standing in the shadows at the far end of the corridor. He didn't know her voice, but her shape and demeanour were familiar. She had an intensity that had been plaguing his dreams.

Behind him, the lift mechanisms were snarling their protest.

The woman was hurrying towards him. 'Please get back from that lift. I was wrong. Now please get away from there!'

He turned to see the floor indicator sink to six.

Danny struggled to countermand the lift signal. Kate's, mind was clouding up with stressful thoughts, making it impossible to channel his own will clearly.

'It's fighting back!' she yelled.

Through her fingers, he could feel the pressure of the function keys forcing upwards against him. 'I must hold it down!' The keyboard was starting to get hot.

'People in gla.s.s houses...' he shouted aloud.

The Intelligence couldn't fight back too violently or it would destroy every delicate circuit in which it wreathed itself.

Through the security camera on Floor Five, Danny could see Lethbridge-Stewart arguing with someone right by the lift doors. It was Victoria Waterfield. Now she was in danger too.

Staying in the system any longer meant deletion for Danny, but he had to save the Brigadier.

Victoria was pulling at the Brigadier's arm.

'Come away please, Brigadier! You shouldn't have come here.'

He wrenched himself free. 'It's a bit late for apologies, madam!'

'Sir!' warned the little tramp and he pointed along the corridor.

A group of Chillys, covered in tatters of web, were advancing on them.

The lift screeched a protest as it finally reached their level.

The door mechanism whirred, but failed to open.

Victoria stepped forward to meet the Chillys. 'Go back to your studies,' she commanded. 'There's nothing here you want!'

Boom! Something began to beat repeatedly on the inside of the lift doors. Something began to beat repeatedly on the inside of the lift doors.

n.o.body moved. n.o.body dared.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

'Quickly!' Victoria urged the Brigadier and the tramp along the corridor away from the Chillys. She ushered them through a fire door towards the emergency stairwell. Glancing back, she saw that, instead of pursuing them, the Chillys were setting their hands to the lift doors, trying to claw them apart.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Victoria fled through the doorway. She found the Brigadier waiting on the stairway.

'This way,' she gasped, but the Brigadier pulled her back.

A tide of Chillys was descending the stairs. More of them blocked the way down. The students ignored Victoria's orders and advanced on the Brigadier. Too late, he raised the fire-extinguisher to defend himself. He vanished under an anemone of grasping hands.

Kate's fingers were burning. She could not take them off the keys. 'Please,' she was begging. 'Please. I can't hold them any longer.'

But the presence at her shoulder was remorseless. 'You must! You must! Think of your dad!'

She was crying. 'Let go! Let go of my mind.'