Doctor Who_ Sleepy - Kate Orman [58]
Madhanagopal turned his head, examining her out of one eye. ‘There is some question of Company confidentiality,’ he said.
‘You must know that we have the authority to access any place—’
‘And any person, etcetera. Yes, I’m familiar with your wide-reaching powers.’ The Director smiled broadly. ‘As is anyone who watches the broadcast media, especially the fiction channels.’
‘We’re required not to reveal anything confidential that we learn, unless it’s directly relevant to the case,’ said Roz smoothly. ‘Even if it’s illegal. In any case, we don’t need to know the details of your work, only to get a broad picture of how it’s done.’
Madhanagopal nodded, apparently satisfied. ‘Very well, ladies. I would be delighted to show you our chief research project myself. We call it GRUMPY. And I am not idly boasting when I tell you it may eventually affect the future of the human race itself.’
‘You don’t say,’ Benny had said politely, draining her coffee cup.
That was yesterday. Now they were rag-dolls in the big room, waiting their turn with the other volunteers.
Right now it was just them and two others. But the room could easily have accommodated a score more. From time to time a nurse slipped in the door, checked on them, avoiding eye contact.
Benny wanted to have a good blub or a proper panic.
Instead she lay on the floor, looking at the wall or the ceiling or sometimes Roz.
Perhaps the Doctor would come to rescue them.
Perhaps he was still a prisoner of the Company, just as they were, unreachable years into the future.
So much for the whole kids problem, anyway.
The door opened. Madhanagopal was there, in his lab gown.
‘Well, then,’ he said.
13 Can’t See the Forrester for the Trees There was a split second in which a non-telepath might have frozen. That tiny moment, that heartbeat between action and reaction.
But as the Doctor fell backwards, the hot light still shimmering around him, Yellow was already bringing her weapon to bear. Even as the Time Lord struck the wall behind her, the muzzle of her blaster was in the face of his assailant.
It was a fifteen-year-old boy.
The boy dropped the pistol as if it was a snake. A trooper ran up, swearing, grabbing uselessly at his empty holster, thinking, How the hell did you do that, you little —
‘At ease,’ said Yellow. The boy’s huge eyes looked at her over the top of her gun. ‘Psychokinetic, right?’
‘Yes ma’am,’ whispered the boy.
Yellow was aware of the mass of human bodies inside the door, all the eyes glued to her. She could hear their fear.
Troopers were unhoistering their weapons, keeping the crowd at bay.
Her eyes unfocused for a moment as she asked her superior officer for instructions.
That was when something heavy slammed into her, making her gun arm swing wide even as she pulled the trigger. The blast went uselessly into the wall while the boy shrieked, tried to run back into the crowd, bounced off the trooper Whose gun he’d snatched.
Yellow yelled, ‘Get the hell off me!’
The Doctor lay on her like a dead weight, blinking and twitching. Yellow twisted awkwardly out from beneath him.
He rolled limply to one side, facing upwards.
His eyes pinned her in place for several seconds.
Yellow snatched up the gun the boy had dropped. It was set to stun. But the Doctor had caught the charge point-blank.
How had he managed to get up and knock her over?
They were all still looking at her. Now what the hell was she supposed to do?
White said, Bring the Doctor to me. And shut that door.
‘All this room needs,’ Benny had muttered, ‘is a sign saying
“THINK”. ’
And Roz had shot her an angry look. She hadn’t taken any notice, staring up at the huge computer that took up —
actually, she couldn’t work out how much of the room it took up; it obscured an entire wall. For all she could tell, it might have stretched back for a kilometre.
GRUMPY was a monolith, a great grey box, six metres wide. Its surface was studded with screens and I/O slots, panels