Doctor Who_ Father Time - Lance Parkin [55]
‘Give us some money,’ one of them said, boldly.
‘You have money,’ the Deputy told him. The beer can in their hands, the other two by their radio, told him as much.
‘We’ve got money. Loadsamoney,’ the youth gargled. ‘We want more.’
The other just swore, struggling to even pronounce the monosyllable.
The Deputy took a step forward, broke the boy’s leg in two places, and watched his face as he realised he was in terrible pain.
The other one, the one who could speak, hesitated. The Deputy turned, cupped his hands and clouted the youth’s ears. Done properly, as here, it was a move that would burst an opponent’s eardrums. The youth was reeling. The Deputy pushed him over and knelt down to reach into his leather jacket. He removed a wad of small-denomination notes. There was the equivalent of six months’ pension here. Indeed, judging by their mode of operation, this probably was pension money.
The Deputy could not be concerned with the inequalities on this planet in this time zone. He needed the money.
The Deputy left them to their agony, pulled down one of the boards that allowed access to the Tower, then began climbing the anonymous stairs, passing rows upon rows of identical doors. This wasn’t so different from prison, but it was a prison where people didn’t know where the next meal was coming from, a prison without warders or hope of release.
There were worse places than this on Earth, the Deputy realised. Places where the crops failed year after year, and the people died in their millions. Places where the nuclear reactors exploded, where hurricanes, earthquakes and floods devastated whole cities.
Joel and Kirst lived on the top floor of the Tower.
The Deputy took the key from his pocket, opened the door.
Joel was in the front room with Kirst, his woman, on his knee, both of them in a haze of narcotic smoke. The television sat in the corner, hypnotically relaying pictures of a brighter, more beautiful planet quite unlike this one.
‘Get what you want?’ Kirst asked, getting up to make a drink for them all.
‘I did.’
He handed her most of the money he’d taken from the youths. The look on her face suggested she thought this was the end to all her problems.
‘I like your friend,’ Kirst told Joel. ‘Pays his rent.’
The Deputy opened up the bag, took out the components he had bought one after the other, laying them out on the table. That done, he went into his room to retrieve the device.
‘It’s a radio?’ Joel asked as he returned.
‘It’s the only way of contacting my people.’
Joel had shown little curiosity about who the Deputy’s people were. After sharing a cell for a few months, Joel knew he wasn’t ‘working for the police’, and that seemed to be the only possibility that he would find unacceptable.
The Deputy fitted the new parts into place.
‘It’s just bits of old carpet on a turntable,’ Joel said, not for the first time.
‘It’s a static-electricity generator,’ the Deputy told him. He pointed at a small plastic vial. ‘The static charge is stored here in that mercury, which converts it into magnetic energy.’
Kirst had come back with mugs of coffee. ‘I did science at school, you know,’ she said. ‘This is all a load of rubbish.’
The Deputy spun the turntable, flicked a switch, and the device began to hum. The turntable picked up speed as it began creating energy.
‘How’s it doing that?’ Kirst asked.
Joel was looking proud. ‘Hey, this man turned my Walkman into a mind-control thing,’ he said. ‘This is no problem.’
‘I need silence,’ the Deputy told them. ‘I need to concentrate.’
He stared into the spinning disc, let himself be mesmerised, brought the mantra up from within himself and focused it at the device. Kirst found herself shaking her head. She was getting dizzy. What was going on?
* * *
‘Miranda, are you OK?’
Dinah was bent over her.
‘You fainted,’ Miss Andrews told her.
Miranda shook her head to clear away the fuzziness in there. ‘I’m fine,’ she