Doctor Who_ Original Sin - Andy Lane [100]
A shiver ran through him. Not only was the door not marked, but all of the rooms on that side of the corridor were on the outside of the building. If that sealed metal door led anywhere, it should be into empty air. Thousands of metres above the Undertown.
That window. He hadn’t really taken it in at the time, but the window showed a view across to the next block. And yet there was a door beside it . . .
And why have a guard on it?
Powerless Friendless ran his pseudo-limb up his eyestalks in confusion. He knew enough about the INITEC building to know that the map wasn’t wrong.
From the outside it was a smooth, featureless block with no protrusions and no flitter access ports. He couldn’t understand where that door might lead.
Perhaps . . .
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Perhaps it led to the man. The man with the soft, smooth voice.
The man with the knife.
He had to get inside.
Powerless Friendless rummaged amongst the shelves of the cupboard until he found the rucksack that he had left there earlier, and slid a pseudo-limb into it. Something sharp closed on his fingers, and he quickly jerked the limb out.
‘Ungrateful little bastard,’ he hissed at the gelatinous creature that was attached to the end of his limb, its eyestalks glowering sulkily at him. ‘I’ve got a job for you.’
Krohg relinquished its grip and allowed Powerless Friendless to stroke its back.
‘You’re going to distract somebody’s attention,’ Powerless Friendless cooed to it, ‘while I creep in somewhere. It’ll be just like old times.’
The door suddenly crashed open, flooding the tiny cupboard with light.
Powerless Friendless whirled around, pseudo-limbs extruded for action.
A shadow fell over him.
‘Well,’ said a familiar voice, ‘so we meet again.’
Rachel Trethewi, Surgeon Imperialis, leaned against the control console and stared through the transparisteel barrier at her latest subject. He was suspended like a puppet from the ceiling of the chamber by a complicated web of monofilaments. He was awake, of course, but immobilized. The room was illuminated by the light from Rachel’s side of the barrier and by the winking green and red tell-tale lights of the medical machines.
And by the vein of fire that throbbed in the tissue of the subject’s exposed brain.
As far as Rachel could see, he was doing fine. His vital signs hung in the air beside him: pulse rate, blood pressure, various neurological traces, a complete kirilian scan. Just above them was his name. Some of her staff didn’t like names, saying that they detracted from the professionalism of the job, but Rachel felt more comfortable using them. The subjects needed reassurance, and using their names seemed to help.
‘Well, Terg McConnel,’ she said, emphasizing her lip movements so that the subject could lip-read. His eyes – wide with panic and with pain – flickered slightly, and his neurological traces peaked. Yes, he was reassured. ‘Terg, we’re going to do some more tests. Do you understand? I know they hurt, but we need to know the answers. We need to know why you went mad and killed your student. You do remember doing that, don’t you?’
The skin around the subject’s eyes tightened, as if he was trying to close them. It did him no good – his eyelids and tear-ducts had been removed to 171
facilitate observations of his pupillary reactions at the same time the top of his head had been removed to expedite access to his brain – but Rachel had noticed that autonomic reactions such as blinking couldn’t be suppressed very easily. Perhaps she should extend the level of immobilization to minor as well as major muscle groups. The results of her tests might be affected otherwise.
It was so difficult to tell what might be important.
Rachel’s gaze was drawn back to the line of brightness that throbbed within