Doctor Who_ Interference_ Book Two - Lawrence Miles [58]
[SAM pauses, and looks around the studio.]
SAM: We do now. Now we’ve come home.
[Fade out.]
* * *
‘Welcome back, said Compassion.
It took Sam a few moments to work out that she wasn’t in the media any more. At least, she didn’t think she was in the media, but it was getting harder and harder to spot the differences between the real world and the transmissions. The world had Frankenstein architecture and a Star Trek colour scheme. Nothing made sense any more, unless she had some way of comparing it to her own native signals.
But her knees were pressed against something hard, and there was nothing that solid inside the sphere. She heard the sounds of screeching engines somewhere in the distance, and felt the smoothness of the platform under her hands. She was pleased to see that there were no wrinkles on the backs of those hands.
‘It’s 1996,’ she said, just to see if the world disagreed with her.
‘Obviously,’ said Compassion.
Sam looked up. She was back on the top level of the transmitter building, the sphere having shrunk back into the ceiling above her head. Compassion stood in front of her, arms crossed. Sam wasn’t sure, but the place seemed louder than it had before she’d been swallowed. Apart from the sounds of passing fighters, there were shouts from down below, the voice of the masses on the ground floor of the tower. Sam couldn’t imagine the Remote rioting. It just wasn’t what they did.
‘I saw things,’ said Sam. ‘I can’t remember… I was trying to do something, but… it was the future. I was old.’
‘You don’t remember anything else?’ asked Compassion. She was glancing over the edge of the platform, evidently nervous about what was going on down at ground level.
Sam tried to remember the details. There’d been other things in the media, it was true. She seemed to recall being on board a spaceship. Giving an order into a radio. Something about fire. Something about…
…beagles?
‘I’m going to be sick,’ Sam said. ‘I’m going to be very, very, very sick.’
‘No time.’ Compassion pointed over the edge of the platform. ‘We have to leave. Now. Things are getting serious.’
Sam took a couple of steps forward, nearly falling over her feet in the process, and peered over the brink. Down at the bottom of the tower, little person-shaped splodges of colour were darting to and fro, tiny smears of black cradled in their arms. Weapons, Sam realised. The Remote were taking up arms, and rushing out through the grand archways of the transmitter building.
‘The city’s being attacked?’ Sam asked.
‘Kind of. I think this is what you call a civil war.’ Compassion turned away, and headed for the lift shaft in the middle of the platform. ‘We built those weapons for raiding missions, so we could pick up supplies from other planets. We never thought they’d be used inside Anathema.’
The lift platform bobbed up to Compassion’s level. The woman stepped on to it, then looked back at Sam, clearly impatient. Sam decided to go along with her. Not that she had much option, mind you. ‘I don’t get it. Why a civil war? What’s happening?’
‘You’re happening, that’s what. Everyone in the city’s suddenly found a cause. They’re all receiving the same basic data from the transmitters, but they’re all dealing with it their own way. Half the population’s siding with Guest, saying we’ve got to get at the Cold whatever happens. The other half’s saying it’s against their principles to follow orders like that.’
The moment Sam stepped on to the lift platform, it started to sink. She wondered how Compassion was controlling it. ‘But that doesn’t make sense. If they don’t want to follow Guest, why don’t they just ignore him? Why the fighting?’
Compassion rolled her eyes. ‘Because they’re dead set on getting killed for their beliefs. You’ve gone and given them all martyr complexes.’
Sam scowled. ‘It’s not my fault. I didn’t ask to be put into your stupid machine.’ The building shook as she said it, and she got the feeling that something had just crashed into the side of the transmitter. ‘Was that one of the fighters?’
‘Probably. Some of the pilots