Doctor Who_ Corpse Marker - Chris Boucher [28]
‘If you’re not a terrorist, what are you doing here?’
‘I’m a traveller. I travel. I’m en route.’
‘ En route?’ Bolon’s narrow face twisted into an angry sneer.
‘This is a maximum security zone.’
Uvanov felt control of the situation slipping away from him If he wasn’t careful he could still find himself taking responsibility for a lot of this mess. ‘That was what I would have said until today,’ he interrupted coldly. ‘The practice seems to have fallen some way short of the theory however. I’ve seen refreshment arcades with better security than this place.
Somebody will be neck deep in the Sewerpits over this fiasco. I just haven’t decided who that is yet.’
Abruptly the security platoon leader came to attention and said, ‘Beg to report, sir. The intruder was interfering with the robots, sir.’
‘I didn’t know they were robots,’ the Doctor remarked.
‘They’re a lot more lifelike than the ones we had all the trouble with.’
‘We apprehended him,’ the platoon leader went on, ‘and were bringing him in for interrogation when he tried to make a break for it and had to be restrained.’
‘Surely killed is closer to what you had in mind,’ the Doctor suggested.
‘We don’t kill prisoners,’ the man said.
The Doctor smiled. ‘Is that why your stun-kills are on maximum?’ he asked and then stopped smiling.
‘Take this man into custody,’ Bolon ordered.
The security platoon, who were surreptitiously resetting their stun-kills, came to attention and moved towards the Doctor.
‘Not you,’ Uvanov said, halting them in their tracks. ‘You two.’ He pointed to two of the guards who had come with him.
‘I expect this man to be in a fit state to talk when I’ve finished here.’ The two guards came to attention. ‘If he isn’t,’ Uvanov went on, ‘neither will you be.’
As the Doctor was led away Uvanov turned his attention to the batch of robots. His first problem was that the Project was no longer as secret as it needed to be. At this stage no one was supposed to see these Cyborg-class machines except the techs.
They certainly weren’t supposed to be paraded in front of low-grade security personnel. The guards would have to be silenced of course. It was lucky they were low grade. It probably wouldn’t be necessary to eliminate them. They could simply be bought off or frightened off. If it came to the pinch no one would pay much attention to them anyway. Teech Bolon might be more difficult...
But the secrecy might not be the only part of the Project which was compromised. There could be a worse problem developing. It looked as though several of the robots were showing distinct signs of wanting to follow the Doctor.
Leela had refused to be blindfolded. Three of the larger members of the group had attempted to force the issue and were still rubbing their bruises, making lame excuses about tripping over each other, and claiming to have pulled their punches because she was a girl. It was noticeable, however, that afterwards only Padil risked putting a hand on the newest recruit to the Tarenist cause.
‘They think you could be a spy,’ she said. ‘You could be trying to infiltrate the organisation.’
‘They are right,’ Leela said. ‘I could be a spy.’
‘So you’ll wear the blindfold?’
‘No.’ Leela turned away. ‘I should not have come this far with you. I must return to the Doctor.’
Padil said, ‘They don’t take prisoners back there.’ She grabbed at Leela’s arm. ‘They’ll kill you.’
Leela felt a jolt of pain shock through her body and all her muscles cramped in an unbearable twisting agony. ‘And if they don’t I will,’ a voice said and a vivid glare of blood-red brightness filled her eyes and she fell twitching into the dark.
Of the twenty attackers who went into the central service facility seventeen made it back out to the private fliers waiting close to the perimeter fence. Seventeen plus Leela.
‘You didn’t have to do that,’ Padil protested furiously.
‘Capel, humanity be in him, calls her to serve.’
Sarl, the raid leader, threw the stun-kill into the cabin of a flier. ‘We haven’t got time for all this,’ he said calmly.