Cold Fusion - Lance Parkin [55]
You fire it by miming pulling a trigger. If you’ve not used one before, then you’d better take the standard issue gloves. These things are dangerous if you’re not used to them. Especially if you’re playing charades.’
Adric put on a pair of dark blue gloves. They were fingerless, but had strips of plastic woven into the knuckles. They were nearly finished, Forrester passed over a portable computer. He’d seen Medford with one before, so knew where it slotted into his armoured wrist-guard. He booted it up to check that it was working. Forrester was doing the same. Finally, they put on the helmets, a one-piece affair with a mirrored visor. Holographic eyecons flashed up to indicate the status of the suit’s systems.
Forrester appeared as a bright map of pressure points and vital organs. The room’s shadows and corners flashed yellow as the tactics computer warned him that danger could be lurking there. The doorframe was picked out in red. Earcons buzzed warnings and prompts – ‘Suit integrity at 100 per cent’ ‘Intruder alert’ ‘Defence grid active’. Adric used the controls on his wrist to simplify the displays. Forrester was doing the same, by the look of it.
They looked up at precisely the same moment to confirm that they were ready.
‘How do we get out?’
‘There’s an escape route planned.’ Her voice was electronically modulated. Adric realized that his voice was also being filtered through a helmet microphone. ‘We’ll have to get to a designated cell.’
‘Which one?’
She was dialling up something on her computer. ‘The one that the computer “randomly” allocates to anyone brought in with the surname “Jovanka”. It’s all part of the plan.’
‘Jovanka, but that’s –’
‘Cell 289-G. First, though, we have to try to find the Patient and get her to the Doctor.’
‘The Doctor has already got her.’
Roz turned. ‘What? How long have you known the Doctor?’
‘Only a couple of weeks,’ Adric admitted, ‘but we’ve been through a lot together in that time. I was there when he regenerated.’
‘He what? No, it’s all right, I heard you.’ Forrester considered this new information for a moment. ‘Wait a cotton-picking minute: that young man at the train station with pyjama bottoms and the gormless grin... the guy I shot, he was the Doctor?’
Adric nodded. ‘He did try and tell you. You escaped, but we were arrested and brought to Scientifica. We got out and rescued the Patient from the medical centre. When you found me I was covering their escape.’
‘Fantastic,’ she replied, with more than a hint of irritation in her voice. ‘I wish he would tell me these things. There’s a complete lack of communication, so we get the usual misunderstanding and confusion. No one knows who’s who or what’s what. Right: change of plan, we head for level two-eighty-nine and get the hell out of here.’
‘Good plan,’ Adric agreed. He placed his hands on his hips. ‘Do I look like an Adjudicator?’
He couldn’t see Forrester’s expression behind her visor.
9
Escape to Danger
The Doctor’s foot probed thin air for a moment before it found the girder. Slowly he released his hand, easing his weight onto that foot. The girder held.
The Patient was making faster progress: she was five or six metres below him, and almost out of sight. It was dark in the ventilation system, even for Time Lord eyes. The hypocaust system was quite simple: hot air from the furnaces in the basement rose up the flues and channels that criss-crossed the pyramid.
‘Wait,’ he called down, his voice echoing along the metal ducting. They had already established that there were no monitoring devices in here and the system was relatively soundproofed. The Patient stopped, gracefully balanced on a metal support. She swept her hair back over her forehead as the Doctor caught up with her. The Patient still seemed a little distant, constantly distracted by something. The Doctor put this down to the new surroundings and the language barrier.