Doctor Who_ Cat's Cradle_ Times Crucible - Marc Platt [98]
"Pilot ident!" the Doctor shouted.
The silver frame sank rapidly down the turning shaft to their level. Its centre flickered weakly with the ghosts of figures and symbols. Around the platform, the walls were starting to tremble.
"Access Architectural Configuration."
Small segments of masonry began to tumble around him. A crack began to widen in the wall above.
In for a penny, in for a pound. The Doctor tightened his fists and ordered, "Complete structural reconfiguration. TARDIS Type 40. Return to original template."
"Send!"
A painful grating sound. The screen flared white for a moment. The turntable platform juddered in its descent. The remaining stars guttered and several died utterly.
"Cancel!" choked the Doctor, his throat raw with dust.
The grating ceased, but the dimensional gear change had failed to engage. The platform still wound slowly down between the crumbling walls. They were nearing the ground. The Doctor shook his head in disgust. "Not enough power."
The screen still sank with them. Its frame had paled into the form of an attendant ghost.
"Localized configuration only," the Doctor called. "Let's take this gently. Tower staircase section. Extend . . . to whatever you can manage. Send!"
The remaining stars went out. Silence.
Something clicked into place. He heard a distant rumble that grew to a roar. The platform jolted violently. The Doctor grabbed Vael and threw himself at the stairway. Behind them, the platform fell apart in a tumble of planks and stone. The stairway's descent stopped.
"Hang on tight!" yelled the Doctor. The tower walls began to crumble and fall away around them. They clung on to the edges as the stairway went into reverse. Turning at alarming speed, it spiralled up unsupported into the darkening air.
24: A Flight of Stairs
A report chittered to the Watch Tower.
An image from the eyes of a guard on the Phrontisterie artery.
The body of the older Process lay crumpled on the street.
All that old Now was being swept away.
The World responded to the young Process's commands.
From the pinnacle of its Tower, the Process watched the shape of the World as it restructured.
The destruction, it assumed, was a necessary purge before the new shape of its new Now was begun.
The eyes of its new Captain showed another image.
Wilby the Doctor, trapped on the broken tower on the Middle Phase.
The trap was winding shut, driven by the collective will of its new guards, on whose energy the Process glutted itself.
This was its World. Its new Now.
A flash of light.
Masonry falling.
The guards fleeing.
Time in the City collides and shatters the planned possibilities.
The young Process howls its rage.
The tremors woke Ace. A continuous rumbling in the ground. For a moment she heard a low animal gasp nearby, and then masonry crashed down somewhere further off. A glow was rising from the street. A carpet of tiny lights covered its length, thousands of brilliant little star flowers that darkened the empty sky above. The air had taken on a fresh chill.
A dark shape stood among the lights close to her. Ace cringed as it lurched nearer, extending a claw towards her.
"The future changes," it said.
In the strange underlit glow, she barely recognized him. He wore one of the greatcoats again. It covered his body, but his head was as bare of hair as a bullet. His face was drawn and hollow. The weal on his cheek stood out strongly, and his glazed white eye stared from its torn socket.
"Pekkary?" she said.
He shivered and pulled the coat around him. The scabrous armour still covered his clenched hands.
"I'm just a possibility," he said, his voice weighted with exhaustion. "I may not live long."
Ace got slowly to her feet, ready to run. "Did you escape?"
"In my youth I was a slave. Then I became a guard to that monster. Now I am relieved