Doctor Who_ Last Man Running - Chris Boucher [84]
‘Not how it works,’ Sozerdor explained with exaggerated playfulness. ‘You know that’s not what I meant.’
‘Leela,’ the Doctor said. ‘Try not to touch it.’
‘Good advice, Sozerdor said. ‘A little obvious perhaps but... good.’
Leela checked that she was in the exact centre of the pit and sat down cross-legged. The shrinking seemed to be speeding up. The force field reached the knife that she had not retrieved. With a vicious snap of static it flicked into movement and skittered across the floor. Leela stopped it with her foot.
‘If you don’t know how it’s controlled do you at least know who’s controlling it?’ the Doctor asked matter-of-factly. ‘Is it Monly?’ He glared at the two Monlys, who were standing where they had been left and were looking lost and confused as though they had recently woken tip in a place they didn’t recognise. ‘This toody says he created you. Do you think that’s true?’ Neither of them responded. ‘If I were you,’ he went on. ‘I should want the toody punished for his presumption.’
‘That’s impressive. No, I really am impressed.’ Sozerdor’s grinning admiration might almost have been genuine. ‘You never stop trying, do you? I’m controlling it of course.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ the Doctor said.
‘Yes you do.’
‘Prove it to me.’
‘By stopping it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Very well.’ He held out an open palm towards the force field. With a theatrical flourish he closed the hand into a fist and clapped it to his chest. ‘There. It’s stopped.
‘It has not stopped, Doctor,’ Leela called crouching lower, pulling her legs close to her chest and wrapping her arms round them.
‘She’s right, it hasn’t stopped,’ Sozerdor agreed. ‘I lied.’
‘You don’t know how to stop it, do you?’ the Doctor said with as convincing a sneer as he could manage. He strode away towards the two Monlys. ‘Monly has got the controls, hasn’t he?’ He was quite sure that Sozerdor couldn’t have resisted a small demonstration of his power if he had the control mechanism with him, so he reasoned that the alcove Sozerdor was hiding in had to be the key to it.
‘This is disappointing,’ Sozerdor declared, watching Leela with obvious enjoyment. ‘You must know Monly couldn’t control his legs without my say-so. I expected aliens like you and Leela here to be cleverer than this, Doctor.’
The Doctor reached the Monlys. ‘That is a dangerous madman,’ he muttered as he hurried on past them. ‘He thinks that he made you and that I’m an alien.’
‘Yes, Doctor, Sozerdor was gloating loudly. ‘I knew you were aliens from the start. But I know for certain now that you’re not the aliens that made all this.’
‘Stop him if you can,’ the Doctor said.
‘So I know for certain now that you’re expendable.’
Leela could not get enough breath to shout as she cramped herself lower. ‘Doctor?’ she gasped. ‘There is not much time left.’
‘You’re going to make a lot more noise than that,’
Sozerdor taunted. ‘Don’t feel too badly – you’ll live again in my little army of assassins.’ Turning back to taunt the Doctor he said, ‘Unlike you...’ and realised as he spoke the words that the Monly outburst had been only a cover. ‘Stop!’ he bellowed.
The Doctor rushed on, hardly registering the weirdness in the active alcoves he was passing.
He had to pick the right one and he had to do it quickly.
There was no time for mistakes. He hoped the Monlys might delay any attempt Sozerdor made to chase after him. The trouble was, there was nothing to distinguish one alcove from another except what they were monitoring or creating, downloading, uploading or controlling: the Doctor was uncomfortably aware suddenly of how little he really understood about this technology. There was no time for doubts, either. No time for mistakes and no time for doubts.
Which one was it?
The shot took the Doctor by surprise. It missed him and chewed a chunk out of the forward edge of an alcove. He should have known Sozerdor would have kept a gun available. The power surge overloaded the alcove’s output, which abruptly tumbled into a twisted chaos of fleeting impressions before everything