Doctor Who_ Illegal Alien - Mike Tucker [58]
'Frankenstein, you see,' said the Doctor, 'had to wait around until there happened to be an electrical storm.
Frankenstein wasn't on the mains, Mr Limb. He called upon the power of the Gods, but he couldn't call upon the power of the London Electricity Board.' He was squatting above a mains socket, set low in the wall. In his hand he held an electrical plug, the lead from which trailed across the floor in the direction of the workbench.
'Whereas we ' he thrust the plug into the socket 'can!'
At the head of the bench George Limb stood next to the drip and watched the bloodengorged bag leak its contents down a rubber tube into the neck of the inert Cyberleader.
The Doctor scampered to the side of the bench.
'The nine-fifteen for Swansea is now departing from platform ten, calling at Reading, Swindon, Bristol Parkway, Newport, Cardiff, Bridgend, Port Talbot, Neath and...
Swansea! Do you like the seaside, Mr Limb?'
'Doctor, really!'
The old model railway transformer lay partly dismantled in front of the Time Lord. With the addition of an alarming array of metal wire and a large, fortuitous block of iron the Doctor had transformed the sturdy, safeinthehandsofchildren exemplar of prewar British engineering into something much more powerful and much more dangerous. Wires billowed from the back of the casing, snaking to different points on the Cyberleader's body. He tripped the large metal switch. The single coloured light shone.
'I have to get it precisely right,' said the Doctor. 'He needs a very precise current to keep him alive. Too much and I kill him. Too little and he dies anyway.'
'Yes, Doctor...' George Limb sounded perturbed. 'I've been wanting to ask you: in what sense can we consider him it alive?'
'Cybernetics, Mr Limb. I shouldn't be telling you, but under the circumstances I think you have a right to know what we're dealing with.'
'Cybernetics?'
The science of the interface of men and machines. The point at which the organic and inorganic worlds meet and fuse.'
George Limb rubbed his hands with excitement. 'So this thing is half mechanical, half organic. I suspected as much.
But why?'
'Efficiency, Mr Limb. Blind, ruthless efficiency. What it really means is the final parasitisation of the living world by the mechanical.'
The old man blinked his strange, slow blink.
'There!'
A regular, slow hum, almost inaudible, came from the Cyberleader's chest.
'Now... notebook and pen, please.'
The Doctor had removed what remained of the face plate from the Cyberleader's head. Two wires connected the Cyberbrain to a slim plastic readout pad on the edge of the bench. With a small screwdriver he began making tiny adjustments inside the open head.
'Difficult... Got to... access the memory circuits. If there's anything left of them.'
He held the screwdriver out to George Limb.
'Mr Limb, when I tell you to do so I would like you to connect these two little elements with the screwdriver.' He licked the nib of the pen. 'Now, please.'
The old man gently inserted the screwdriver into the twisted mass of strange electronics and brain tissue.
Numbers burbled across the readout screen. The Doctor scribbled furiously.
'Stop!' he would bark from time to time, and then, 'Again!'
all the time his hands filling the page with lightningfast, unreadable characters.
A sudden, highpitched electronic burble from the head made him start. George Limb snatched the screwdriver away in alarm. 'What was that?' the old man asked.
'I'm not sure...' Pensively the Doctor tapped the end of his pen against his lower lip. It sounded like some kind of signal. I think we must have accidentally triggered it. A signal... Hmm... But to what?'
He returned his attention to the notepad.
'Ah, well, it's stopped now I hope.'
'Doctor...' George Limb tugged at the Time Lord's sleeve.
The transformer was starting to glow alarmingly.
The screwdriver was suddenly snatched from the old man's clutch as if by some invisible hand. A burst of digital chittering momentarily squawked from the head.
'What was that?' The Doctor peered