Doctor Who_ Hope - Mark Clapham [1]
Dave looked about to protest, but she froze him in a glare of certainty, and he backed down before he had begun.
Yeah, I suppose youre right, he said.
Of course Im right, she replied, getting to her feet. Now come on. She tugged his arm, pulling him to his feet. An ice cream will cheer you up.
Can I have a flake? he asked, a wry smile returning.
If youre good, she replied slyly, kissing him on the cheek.
Bleak thought dispelled, Anji and Dave wandered arminarm through the sundrenched day.
Part One
Headhunt
Chapter One
Out of the Box
That last card might as well have been from the tarot pack, thought Kyrro as he was hastily ejected from the Silver Palace. A low four, when he needed at least a seven. The card should have had Death written across it, an etching of the grim reaper looking out from it, that would have been appropriate for the gravity of the situation. Kyrros credit limit was up, his account at the Palace dry until he could prove himself solvent once more. The croupier had looked up from the card with an expression close to pity, clearly knowing Kyrro was a dead man walking. Out of luck, out of cash, and soon after out in the cold. Kyrro had protested slightly, but the head of security, Myrawhatever, only needed to suggest that Kyrro take up his grievance with the Palaces owner for him to shut up and accept his expulsion.
Kyrro slid his breath filter over his mouth and nose. He may be broke but he at least had a couple of the basics covered. Breather, decent clothes, a place to stay even if that place was on the other side of Hope, requiring an unenviable nighttime walk. At least he had those few things, more than the real derelicts, the swingers who lived between the citys stilts, hanging from girders and living on scraps, their unprotected lungs raw from the fumes rising from the waters beneath. At least Kyrro had some dignity left, some small way to go before he sank to the level of those poor wretches.
The caustic smog and the effects of alcohol were blurring Kyrros vision, so he was especially careful as he stumbled down the rusty metal steps to the lower levels, the dim glow from tenement windows lighting his way as the steps weaved around the towers. The steps led to a walkway towards the edge of the city, hidden in the lower levels with only the flare of the occasional gaslight to illuminate the concourse. The boards creaked as Kyrro walked, peering downwards to make sure there werent any missing slats. If he fell now, down into the toxic soup below, there would be no witnesses, no evidence of his passing. Kyrro knew he was going to die one day. He just couldnt stand the idea of going unnoticed.
A vicious sea breeze stung Kyrros eyes as he reached the edge, where a pierledge would lead him around to his lodgings in one of the bloated habiclusters that clung to the edge of the town. At least this area was better lit, the watchtowers dotted around Hopes coastline casting a fierce sodium glare over everything around them. Kyrro could hear the raucous conversation of militia members patrolling the upper levels, close enough to be audible but too far up for Kyrro to make out any words.
And then there was something else, another sound somewhere nearby. Kyrro stopped dead in his tracks if it were the creaking of a girder about to snap, or the bubbling prelude to a gas explosion, he would need to get away fast. He listened carefully, backing away slightly as he realised there was a scratchy, scrabbling noise coming from somewhere nearby, somewhere just ahead and slightly below where he was. It was only when the hand gripped the railing and the white figure dragged itself over on to the path that Kyrro realised what that implied. And by then he was already running.
In the spaces between space itself, in the timeless region outside time, a blue box spins through the void. Both creature and machine, yet strangely neither, this blue box is a TARDIS, a travelling machine skimming across the surface of spacetime, occasionally dipping below the surface