Doctor Who_ Interference_ Book One - Lawrence Miles [80]
They’d flown right past the dome. The last shake had been the slipstream, or whatever you called it, the fighters’ engines tearing up the air around the platform. Now they were heading back this way.
‘What –’ Sam began.
But Compassion was already turning, pushing her to one side. There was a blank look in the woman’s eyes, as if she were suddenly acting on new instructions, instructions that had priority over everything else. Sam fell back against the wall, then watched as Compassion strode towards the open panel, and started punching at the controls again.
Sam peered back out through the doorway. The fighters were definitely getting closer, their trajectory slightly lower this time. On a collision course with the dome.
They were going to crash. Just for the hell of it.
‘They can’t do that,’ Sam shouted. ‘The Cold must want both of us alive. Why’s it telling the fighter pilots to attack us?’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Compassion snapped. ‘The Cold doesn’t tell anyone to do anything. Haven’t you figured that out yet?’
Sam heard the air cracking. The sound of flight, not quite supersonic, but still fast enough to give the atmosphere a few surprises.
The next thing she heard was the hissing of a badly tuned TV set. At the centre of the dome, surrounded by the ring of silver machinery, a doorway was opening up in the air. A rectangle of static, flickering with random images, presumably interference from the transmitters. The dome was still listing to one side, and the edges of the rectangle kept shifting, throwing the shape out of perspective.
Suddenly, Compassion was holding Sam’s hand, dragging her into the middle of the floor. Sam caught sight of the doorway, and saw the three black shapes ripping up the red‐and‐black sky, their engines making the platform tremble under her feet before they were even anywhere near the dome. She let Compassion throw her across the room, then felt herself tumble forward, towards the doorway. The floor tilted again, so she had to grab one of the silver claws to stay on her feet. The claw twisted slightly in her grip, and the rectangle flickered, turning into something that Sam vaguely remembered she was supposed to think of as a ‘rhombus’.
GCSE maths. Nothing like it, was there?
‘Bad luck,’ she heard Compassion say, over the background noise of hissing static and quivering architecture. ‘Just bad luck. That’s all.’
The next thing Sam knew, something was pushing against her spine, propelling her forward, into the static. Her skin buzzed as it touched the surface of the doorway, every cell splitting into three component parts, one red, one blue, one green.
Look Mum, she thought, as she disintegrated. I’m on television.
I am television.
* * *
Scene 18. Behind the Bike Sheds
[Flashback, black and white. SAM’s point of view. MARK LESSING still stands in front of her, leering.]
MARK: You’re what?
SAM: I’m television. I’m being… um…
MARK: Transmitted?
SAM: Yeah. Yeah, that’s it. [She thinks for a moment.] Am I going back to the Cold?
MARK: Nah. Not this time. Compassion punched a new program into the controls. You’re being beamed straight down to the surface of Anathema.
SAM: They can do that?
MARK: Only if they’re feeling suicidal. Too much interference from the transmitters. You try transmitting yourself anywhere near the surface, there’s a risk of ending up scrambled. Let’s face it, it’s an emergency measure. Then again, you should be used to being scrambled.
SAM: Meaning?
MARK: You don’t remember? The one and only time you got off your box. On what I’m about to sell you. You were up in the attic, and…
SAM: And?
MARK: Interference. You’re there right now, staring into space while all your friends make a run for it. And there’s an Ogron in your kitchen. And then there’s James Stewart.
SAM: What’s James Stewart got to do with anything?.
MARK: Nothing. Yet. Now, d’you want to buy some of this stuff off me,