Doctor Who_ Blue Box - Kate Orman [47]
At the top, he stuck a set of instructions onto the wood of the pole with a bit of blu-tac, and went to work with tools from the leather bag. Peri and I leaned over the safety rail to see what Bob was doing. He appeared to be setting up his computer down there, spread out on a picnic blanket.
We looked at one another. ‘How the hell’s he gonna run it?’ I said.
But the Doctor had thought of everything. After clambering down from the pole, making Peri bite her lip and mutter curses, he hauled himself up the slope carrying some spare cable. Shortly afterwards, Bob’s computer was running off Travco power.
I followed the Doctor back down the wet bank, slipping and sliding in melting snow. Bob was hunched awkwardly in front of the Doctor’s Apple II. ‘We’re in,’ he said. I crouched down, shading my eyes so I could read the screen. He’d logged into his university account. The modem was connected to the phone lines by a cable that ran right up the telephone pole. It was the most awkward, overproduced, jerry-rigged lashup I’d ever seen. But it was a thoroughly anonymous way into Swan’s private electronic world – provided they could get through the door.
He and Bob spent the next hour trying to break back in to the TLA mainframe. Last time, it had been like a hot knife into the butter. Now, nothing from the Doctor’s bag of tricks could crack Swan’s security. She had gone back in and nailed shut every doorway, every window, every trapdoor in her system.
I got bored watching them try and went back to the cabin of the campervan, where Peri was dozing in the driver’s seat.
We had a lovely view of the misty valley. I checked my look in the rear view mirror and we talked for a bit, swapping favourite films. Mine’s Key Largo. Peri’s is something called Ghostbusters that I’ve never heard of. She told me a funny story from her first year of college: one day she was out walking beside a road when she saw a little white dog come out of a church parking lot. It was tiny, a toy dog – Peri knew it wasn’t a poodle, although she didn’t really know what it was. It trotted along, surprisingly fast, its little pink tongue flicking in and out as it bounced along the pavement.
A moment later the little dog had wandered out into the road. It was a suburban street, but busy. Peri expected the dog’s owner to come running out of the parking lot. But no-one appeared. The little dog trotted across the road and was up onto the opposite pavement before any more traffic came along.
But now the dog was running around in the gas station!
Peri reached the big intersection, waiting at the lights, watching as two people started calling the dog. A woman in a pleated skirt knelt down, whistling. But the dog took no notice, this time heading for the four lanes of the main road.
Peri’s heart sank as she saw it scoot out into the traffic. It was so small, surely none of the dozens of drivers queued up could see it, let alone the drivers rushing past on the other side of the road.
No – there it was! It had somehow emerged on the other side, without having been crushed into street pizza or causing a ten-car pile up. Peri felt her shoulders sag in relief.
Oh, for God’s sake, it was back out in the road again! The light had just changed, and the first car was moving slowly enough that they could brake to avoid killing it. The two cars behind it braked and honked. Randomly, obliviously, the tiny dog darted sideways through the traffic, constantly moving, jaywalking until it was back on Peri’s corner.
It trotted down the pavement, tongue still dangling, as though nothing had happened.
Peri watched it go. If the dog had stopped for a moment, frightened by the traffic, it would have been run over. But it just kept moving, and the cars just kept missing it. It was almost,