Doctor Who_ Bad Therapy - Matthew Jones [59]
complemented the melody etched into the walls.
There were four bird/globe symbols on the floor, marking out the points of a rectangle.
Caress the birds
Ten minutes later, Gilliam was ready to give up. She’d tried tracing each of the symbols in turn to no avail. She’d tried pressing them one after the other in every possible combination – still nothing.
She slumped down on the floor and hugged her knees. What did she think she was doing anyway? Searching for secret doors like Nancy Drew. She ought to pack up and go home and leave it for the professor to write his papers about.
She sighed. Time for bed. She read back her translation notes as she walked over to her tent. The last paragraph of Petruska’s journal was different in style to the technical reports which preceded it. Almost poetic and filled with hope and. . . love. Gilliam tried to imagine what it would have been like for the queen and her bodyguard lover, to be together in this room. Secretly working towards the day when they would escape through the gateway. It must have been terrifying. Exciting too.
We’ll caress the birds
Together
Suddenly Gilliam knew how they would have entered the mountain. She ran back to the centre of the room and kicked off her heavy boots. By stretching herself out like a starfish, she was just able to reach all of the bird/globe symbols at the same time. She pressed them.
Together.
The ground shuddered once and Gilliam felt rather than heard ancient ma-chinery grind into action. The rectangle of floor on which she was spread-eagled began slowly to descend. Dragging her down into the mountain. Down to the bird/globe, the gateway, the opening door. And away from her thermo-tent and the protection it provided from the night cold.
Gilliam shivered as she sank into the darkness.
100
7
On Being Sane In Insane Places
Julia Mannheim had slept badly, waking in her room at the Institute feeling as if she had only just put her head down on the pillow. Feeling cheated of the benefit of a good night’s rest, she ran a hand through her disheveled hair as she padded through the labyrinth of corridors of the old asylum building.
She had only managed to get to bed in the early hours after the alert over the escape had finally died down. The director hadn’t actually seemed to be that concerned when the security team had reported their usual failure.
He’d just murmured that the matter was in hand in that quiet voice of his.
Well, at the end of the day he was the one who was accountable for all the research equipment. As assistant director, her responsibilities were focused on the organization of the research team. When it came to the Toys, it was his head on the block. Still, the idea of one of the Toys stumbling across the countryside unsettled her. They weren’t likely to hurt anyone, but they might give some poor soul the shock of their life.
The sudden suspension of the project by the government had left all their work half done. The prospect of another long day of tying up administrative loose ends did not inspire her. Julia entered the Institute’s morgue where two corpses were laid out on adjacent slabs. A juvenile male and a mature male adult. She added another note to her mental list of things to do. She would have to arrange for the regular delivery of sample human tissue to be discontinued.
One of the sample human tissues sat up suddenly and grinned goofishly at her.
Julia Mannheim yelped and, much to her later embarrassment, sprinted for the door.
‘Hello there,’ the mature male adult called after her. ‘I’m the Doctor. . . ’ he started, and tried to stand, but his legs buckled under him. He clutched the side of the bench to support himself. ‘And. . . I feel terrible.’
Julia Mannheim had seen some strange sights in her time at the Institute, but reanimated corpses beat everything.
‘You’re supposed to be dead,’ she managed, edging back into the room.
‘People are always saying that to me. I shall get a complex,’ the naked man 101
said, hanging on to