Doctor Who_ Atom Bomb Blues - Andrew Cartmel [86]
Butcher carefully eased the window open another few inches, lay down with his cheek pressed to the ground, and looked inside. He’d already identified the first speaker as Ray Morita, but he didn’t recognise the second man. Peering in through the window he saw that it was a Japanese-American man in a bright-blue zoot suit. There were three other zoot-suiters, also Japanese-looking, standing nearby. Two of them had Thompson .45 calibre sub-machine-guns with the circular fifty-round magazines. The guns were pointed at a man and woman standing anxiously on a red circle in the middle of the white floor –
the Doctor and Ace.
There was one other woman in the basement. Butcher’s heart leapt when he saw that it was Lady Silk. He’d hit the jackpot. Butcher forced himself to quell his excitement and keep a cool head. There was someone else in the basement, too. Someone wearing a ridiculous hooded white robe with a big red spot on the chest. When the figure moved he glimpsed the man’s face. It was the fat woman’s husband. The fat woman herself was nowhere in sight.
The Jap in the blue zoot suit was still talking. ‘We have no choice, we need reinforcements.’
151
‘No you don’t, man,’ said Ray. He was kneeling on the tiled floor of the basement with a box of black crayons, surrounded by an elaborate scrawl of mathematical equations. He had worked his way across a white strip of floor and was now in the red central circle. To Butcher’s untrained eye the equations looked like the same kind of mumbo jumbo the physicists were always scribbling on the blackboards in the ranch school.
‘You don’t need any more reinforcements,’ said Ray. ‘You just want some more foot soldiers because they make you feel important.’
Lady Silk laughed. ‘He does have a point.’
The Jap in the zoot suit looked annoyed. ‘Nevertheless, we have to dispose of these prisoners. We can’t allow them to go free otherwise they will destroy all our careful planning. We must get rid of them somehow, so why not use them in this ritual, to open the gate between the worlds.’
‘Blood isn’t necessary, man,’ quavered Ray, kneeling on the floor and scribbling equations. ‘And you know that the bloodshed won’t stop there. Once your goons come across we’re going to have to find their duplicates in this world. . . ’
‘Which won’t be difficult,’ said the Jap. ‘We’ve discovered that the duplicates are drawn to their otherworldly brothers. We don’t even have to go to them.
They will come to us. They will find us, just like my double did, and yours, and Silk’s. Even if they have to escape a detainment camp and travel across country, they will do so, drawn inexorably to us by links of blood and energy and fate. Don’t worry we’ll get them.’
‘Sure, you’ll get them,’ said Ray. ‘And then what, man? That’s what I was saying. More bloodshed. . . ’
‘The discussion is closed,’ said the Jap in the zoot suit. He turned to Lady Silk. ‘How is he doing with those equations?’
Lady Silk walked across the tiled floor to the patch where Ray was scribbling. ‘Well I’m no genius like him, but I’d say we were just about ready here.’
‘All right,’ said the Jap. He turned to the other zoot-suiters. ‘Drag them over to the Well of Transition.’
Lady Silk laughed. ‘Honestly, the Well of Transition. That’s a goofball name if ever I heard one.’
‘Don’t be disrespectful,’ said the Jap. ‘It works.’ He followed his men as the two with the Tommy guns forced Ace and the Doctor towards the well in the centre of the red circle.
‘Now, how shall we do this?’ said Lady Silk. ‘Gun or a knife?’
Butcher decided he’d heard enough. He didn’t understand half of the gibberish that they were spouting, but it was very clear that if he didn’t act now the Doctor and Ace were done for. He rolled away from the window, preparing to scramble to his fret. As he did so he looked up and saw the night sky, 152
full of stars. He also saw the fat, smiling face of the woman called Elina.
‘We shouldn’t have told you that last bit,’ she said. ‘That bit about the car.
You could probably tell the engine