Doctor Who_ So Vile a Sin - Ben Aaronovitch [100]
The girl glanced back – she was so young, no more than sixteen! – and hurled herself down a narrow passageway. Chris 231
passed a VIEWING AREA sign as he followed her, stumbling over a cleaning robot.
The girl ran smack into a crowd of tourists, standing about in a cool blue lounge, staring out at the overcity. She looked back once more. Chris saw a flash of dark eyes, desperately afraid.
‘No!’ he shouted.
The girl hurled herself at one of the great rectangular windows.
She bounced off the hyperglass, flung backward into a row of chairs. They scattered in all directions as the girl tumbled down.
Chris was running up when someone else grabbed her. The girl kicked and screamed, but couldn’t get loose.
It was Iaomnet. She looked at Chris. He looked at her.
‘Oh no!’ they both shouted. ‘Not you again!’
An extremely nervous truce found them sitting in Iaomnet’s rented apt half an hour later, the would-be assassin still unconscious after the double-eye had pressed a Sleepybye derm against her neck.
It was a low-level, grungy room. The Doctor had sent Chris to the level’s common room to filch enough chairs for all of them.
‘You were following us,’ said Roz.
Iaomnet shook her head. ‘I’m off your case. I was following her. Suspected Brotherhood operative.’
‘You know about them?’ said Chris, surprised.
‘Of course. Not much, but we know they’re there.’
The assassin was asleep on the narrow bed. A thin girl, perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old, with pale skin and tightly curly hair.
Iaomnet tilted back her head, pinched her eye open, and used a retinal scanner. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘I’m going to run this through records. It’ll take a few minutes.’
‘Wake her up,’ said the Doctor.
‘You don’t want to give her a second chance.’
‘No,’ said the Doctor. ‘This won’t work if she’s unconscious.’
He took something out of his jacket pocket. It was an insect –
no, Iaomnet saw, it was a bot in the shape of an insect. Like a moth. ‘What is it?’ she said.
‘A shutterfly.’
‘You didn’t get that at Groenewegen’s,’ said Roz.
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‘No. I appropriated it from a couple of JayJaxians who were trying to extract a psi embryo from me.’
‘Huh?’ said Chris. ‘When did that happen?’
‘Oh, ages ago,’ said the Doctor. ‘It’s a long story. I thought I’d better keep it handy. The JayJaxians use it for interrogating telepaths.’
‘I’d prefer a standard interrogation,’ said Iaomnet.
‘I’m sure she would, as well,’ said the Doctor. ‘Wake her up.’
Iaomnet screwed up her mouth, thinking about it. ‘Give it a try,’ she said. ‘But she’s my collar, all right?’
‘She doesn’t go with what you’re wearing,’ said the Doctor, as Iaomnet pressed another derm against the girl’s neck.
The assassin blinked, shaking all over. The shutterfly lifted from the Doctor’s hand, electric wings sparkling as it came to life.
It settled on his forehead for a moment. He closed his eyes, folding his hands in his lap, and suddenly relaxed, so completely and utterly that he almost fell out of the chair.
The shutterfly lifted back into the air. The assassin was just coming around, sitting up, trying to get her bearings. Iaomnet drew her stunner. The instant she got her act together, she’d be dangerous again.
The shutterfly jumped on to the girl’s face. She shouted with surprise and flapped her hands at the thing, trying to knock it off.
It crawled around the back of her head as she snatched at its wings.
She went stiff, suddenly, and fell sideways on the bed. Iaomnet craned her neck. The shutterfly was settling down on the back of the girl’s neck, its glittering wings folding.
She had a horrible, sudden vision of the thing pushing one of those tube-tongues into the girl’s brain.
Kuleya found herself in some kind of house. A very old-fashioned house, all wood and rugs and staircases. It reminded her of the boss’s house –
Don’t think about that!
‘You catch on quickly,’ said someone.
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She spun. It was the Doctor.