Doctor Who_ Alien Bodies - Lawrence Miles [118]
The snow started blowing up again. He couldn’t feel it on his skin, but he could see the flakes sticking to his eyeballs. He couldn’t even close the lids. Perhaps he’d been better off lying face-down, after all.
There was nothing more for him to see. He decided to detach his brain from the suit. Human senses weren’t going to do him much good now.
He flexed a nerve, tugged himself free of the false skin. The head shut itself down.
Darkness.
Darkness. This wasn’t a memory any more. He was here, in the depths of the darkness, being taken apart, thought by thought. There were others here, he could see them, even though he no longer had any eyes. They were the ones he’d heard whispering. The ones who’d rescued him from Simia KK98. They were gathered around what was left of his true body, gazing down at him with pale, hard faces. They were all dressed in robes, flowing robes with high collars...
Time Lords? The Time Lords wore costumes like these, he’d heard. Had his allies rescued him? Was it really that simple?
‘...process seems to be working,’ one of the robed figures was saying. ‘It’s the same kind of procedure we’re using to make the anarchitects, but applied to a living subject. Not difficult, once you know how to handle the Celestis’ technology.’
‘Won’t he turn against us when he finds out who we are?’ another asked.
‘It. Not he. It’s purely conceptual. Gender doesn’t mean anything to it, now.’
‘But will it turn against us?’
No. No. Not Time Lords. Those weren’t the robes of the High Council. They were parodies of Gallifreyan costumes, worn by beings that had nothing but contempt for Time Lord society. Which could only mean...
‘Not a concern,’ the first creature said. ‘It was a professional soldier, in its former life. Practically a mercenary. I’m sure we can convert it to our cause. I told you it was the ideal subject, didn’t I? We could have extracted it from the timeline sooner, but I wanted to wait until it had met the Doctor. To let it get the biodata scent, so to speak. We’ll let it keep that particular memory.’
It? Was he an it, now, like the creature had said? It tried to speak, although it didn’t have a mouth. It only had its thoughts, but its thoughts were enough. It reached out for its captors, and felt raw ideas shift inside their heads, making way for its message.
‘WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?’ it demanded.
The beings seemed shocked. It could feel their thoughts brushing against it, concepts rubbing and jostling as it settled in their perceptions.
‘Not yet,’ the first of the figures said. ‘Not yet. You’re not ready for your instructions. You still have a few traces of your old identity left. We have to remove them.’
‘WHAT DO YOU MEAN?’
But the beings didn’t say another word. It felt the last remaining fragments of its past vanishing from its non-existent brain, the memories of its former life as a Gabrielidean plucked out and discarded with surgical precision. Soon, there would be nothing. No flesh, no mind, no identity.
Darkness.
12
SHIFTWORK
There was a humming in the air. To most ears, it would have sounded something like an engine, but Colonel Joseph Kortez preferred to liken it to the constant and unchanging vibration of the one true will of the universe. He considered humming along with it, but decided this probably wasn’t the time.
He stepped through the archway, out of the ziggurat and into the pavement-coloured daylight of the ReVit Zone. According to the Colonel’s watch, it was early evening in the East Indies, but the sun still seemed to be under the impression it was lunchtime. The other buildings around the City enclosure didn’t cast shadows, he noticed. Presumably, time had a special relationship with the Unthinkable City. The world never turned around here, the sun never did anything as impolite as making shade. He wondered if it had been the same in Brigadoon.
Before he even had