Doctor Who_ Original Sin - Andy Lane [83]
‘If you can’t do better than that,’ he said, ‘I’m going to have to remove your eyes.’
The blast spread fire across the plasticrete where Bernice had been standing.
She had instinctively dived to one side, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck shrivel in the heat. Gravel gouged at her skin as she hit the ground rolling 141
sideways. The energy beam followed her, searing the plasticrete, spraying small splinters in all directions. Bernice felt them cut her face and neck as she kept rolling, trying to stay ahead of the ray.
Cwej dropped to a crouching position and fired. The beam from his blaster splashed harmlessly against the robot’s burnished skin and reflected off in a distorted fountain of energy, blistering a nearby pillar. The bot didn’t even seem to notice.
‘It’s armoured,’ he yelled. ‘That’s unfair.’ He shifted fire to the bot’s body, concentrating on its joints, but that strategy was equally useless.
‘No good,’ Forrester shouted, scuttling into the cover of a pillar. ‘Must be one of those assassin models the big corporations are supposed to use.’
‘I thought they were outlawed?’ Cwej exclaimed, holding fire for a moment.
‘They are. Do you want to tell it or shall I?’
Bernice had rolled over and over until she was underneath a flitter. Her heart was pumping so fast she thought it would burst and there was blood in her eyes from multiple cuts on her forehead. The exposed flesh of her forearms and legs stung. Panic was a dead, cold weight in her chest. She knew that if that beam touched the flitter and ignited the atomic batteries, she’d be cooked like a lobster.
She scrambled to the other side of the flitter, preparing to make a dash for it but knowing that she would be cut down before she had taken three steps.
‘Concentrate fire on the head!’ Forrester cried, pumping off shots that missed the silver figure completely but blasted chunks of plasticrete loose from the ceiling. Bernice wondered for a brief, hysterical moment how Forrester had ever made it through Adjudicator training with an aim like that.
Several chunks dropped on the bot’s arm, knocking its aim off. The beam shot into the darkness and the bot’s head swung around, its multi-sensored muzzle seeking out the source of the annoyance.
‘How tiresome.’ The strangely mellow, sardonic voice of the bot echoed around the flitterpark. It raised both of its lower arms and aimed them at Forrester. ‘The Doctor’s friends always were notoriously difficult to kill.’
The Doctor’s friends. Bernice filed that one away for later consideration.
More metallic footsteps, like a metronome off in the shadows. Glinting highlights as the dim, scattered lights reflected off smooth metal.
Two more bots walked out of the darkness to flank the first.
‘Fortunately,’ said the one on the left in the same, relaxed voice, ‘I’ve always preferred my own company . . . ’
‘. . . to that of anybody else,’ the one on the right finished.
All three raised their gun arms simultaneously, each aiming at a different target. Two of them acquired Forrester and Bernice instantly. The third hesitated, trying to locate Cwej and failing. Bernice glanced around, but she 142
couldn’t find him. He’d obviously made a run for it – sensible man.
‘Well,’ Bernice sighed, ‘it’s been fun.’
‘No it hasn’t,’ Forrester snarled, ‘it’s been a bitch.’
A gravimetric motor roared into life in the depths of the flitterpark. Forrester and Bernice peered into the darkness, trying to locate the source, but failed.
‘Cwej?’ Forrester yelled. ‘Is that you?’
The only answer was the sudden overload of the motor as the mag-brakes were abruptly taken off line.
‘Cwej! What the hell are you doing?’
Something flashed out of the darkness towards the robots, something large and blunt: a flitter, cranked up to well over the recommended speed. Two of the bots tried to leap out of the way while the third attempted to fire, but the flitter struck all three before they could move, scattering them like ninepins.
Metallic arms and legs flew off