Doctor Who_ Interference_ Book One - Lawrence Miles [28]
Midnight
There was a tapping sound, and it wasn’t getting any quieter. Badar must have been half asleep, because there were candle‐wax people standing over him again, and he imagined they were the ones making the sound, rapping their skeleton fingers against the brickwork. He felt urine dribble down his leg, his crotch stinging as what little liquid he had left passed out of his body. It wasn’t fear that made him do that. It was just that his flesh felt the urge. He no longer had control over his bladder, or, indeed, of anything below his waist.
The wax men stopped tapping. There was a sigh, and the sigh blew them away like dust.
He moved his neck again, until he was facing the door. There were spots of light somewhere outside the window, lamps lit by the guards in the courtyard, burning pale‐yellow patterns on to Badar’s eyes. The other prisoner was standing by the door, that much was clear, even if Badar had no way of telling what his face was like, or what he was doing with his one good hand. Badar surmised that, here in the waking world, the man had been the one doing the tapping.
The man sighed again. Then moved forward. Possibly leaning against the door, possibly collapsing against it.
‘I can’t do it,’ he said.
Badar didn’t answer him. He was probably talking to himself, anyway.
‘I could escape for England,’ the man said. ‘Or Scotland. Wales, at a pinch.’
A loud banging sound, then. As if he’d punched the door with his fist.
‘I can’t think of anything,’ the man went on. ‘I can’t get out. What’s different? What’s different this time?’
‘Time machine,’ said Badar.
The man stood bolt upright. Suddenly alert. ‘What?’
‘Time machine. Your advantage. TARDIS.’
‘Oh.’ Was the man shaking his head, or was Badar imagining things again? ‘I’m afraid I didn’t bring it with me.’
‘Turn back time.’
‘No.’
‘Why?’
‘I said no.’
‘Why?’
‘You don’t know anything,’ the man told him. He sounded angry, the first time Badar had heard him like that.
Badar wasn’t going to give up, not now. He’d almost built himself a whole new world out of the TARDIS idea, but the man seemed to want to stop him completing it, and he couldn’t work out why. ‘Turn back time. Your advantage. Don’t be captured. Don’t let me be captured.’
‘Not possible.’ Then a pause. ‘I was in a prison before. About a year ago. Ha’olam. They put an implant in my head, so they knew every idea I had even before I knew I’d had it. But even then…’
Badar waited for him to finish.
‘But even then, at least I had ideas,’ the man concluded. ‘Not now. I can’t concentrate.’ There was a longer pause. ‘Maybe Ha’olam broke me. Wore out my escape circuits.’
‘Can’t turn back time? Not even here?’
‘No. Not even here. Can I ask you a question?’
‘Yes,’ said Badar.
‘Do you believe me? About having two hearts? About having a time machine?’
The question confused Badar. He didn’t see what believing had to do with anything. He was building with ideas, because ideas were the only things that mattered. Everything on the outside hurt. On the outside, there was just the cell, and the courtyard. The inside was bigger. The inside was where the TARDIS idea lived.
‘Don’t understand,’ said Badar.
‘No,’ said the man. ‘Of course you don’t.’ Then he was moving, a shadow folding itself up in the darkness, sliding into the corner.
‘Goodnight,’ the man said.
‘Goodnight,’ said Badar. And he fell asleep again.
* * *
4
Four Rooms
(running around, getting captured, escaping, etc.)
Room 3.06
‘What is it?’ the girl asked. Which was a reasonable question, all in all.
The video player hadn’t been part of the hotel room’s fixtures and fittings. Sarah had gone out and bought it from a local TV shop when the interference had started, putting It on her MasterCard and hoping she’d be able to reclaim it as expenses someday. The machine was on freeze‐frame, the TV displaying the first of the ‘interesting’ images she’d found in the recordings.
The first time you saw it, the screen looked dark, except for the bits that were speckled with little white dots of static. Then you saw the shapes.