Doctor Who_ So Vile a Sin - Ben Aaronovitch [96]
Inside, the Fat Monster Eater was filled with a foam comprising billions of tiny bubbles a few millimetres across, each one containing its own heating element, actuator and pinbrain.
The actuators moved the bubbles around in concert to create facial expressions and interesting and playful lumps on its body; the heating elements varied the temperature within the bubbles to allow the Fat Monster Eater to achieve buoyancy at average room temperature and float around a child’s bedroom in an amusing fashion.
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Right now the Fat Monster Eater was not amusing. Right now its big saggy mouth was wrapped around the head and shoulders of the monster that had come to kill Thandiwe.
She was screaming and screaming, a tiny, shrill sound, scrunched up on her bed while she hit the emergency button over and over.
The distorted creature was struggling for its life, one arm caught inside the Fat Monster Eater’s maw, the other raking at its bulk with metallic claws. It turned from side to side, trying to shake the toy loose or smash it against a wall. But the Eater had no single brain, no organs to damage. It clung on to its victim like a factory-standard Fat Monster Eater oughtn’t to, slowly sucking more and more of the creature’s body inside its own.
Security had taken over a minute to respond, almost overwhelmed by the distorted creatures in the corridor outside.
They saw Thandiwe on her bed, still screaming. They saw the Fat Monster Eater engulf its victim to the knees, its body stretched as far as it would go, foam pouring from its wounds, its baggy shape slowly slackening.
Everyone around her had simply gone to pieces. Roz forced her feelings down into a tiny corner of her being and concentrated on what needed to be done.
There was nothing to do. Security was tight, the threat was over, there was a pile of monster corpses in the central compound. There was nothing to do but pick up the pieces, the pieces everyone had gone to. Stay cool, you’re needed.
She stood in the boardroom, where the surviving heads of security had gathered. They’d already rounded up every member of staff with a psi rating – six were left alive – and sent them home. Rumour had it they’d been shot, but Roz had watched them board a shuttle, bewildered and terrified.
Roz shifted her position slightly. She was holding Leabie, who was weeping uncontrollably, babbling in !Xhosa and tearing at Roz’s clothes.
Chris was in another room, bouncing Thandiwe on his knee, telling her silly jokes. No one had told her clearly what had happened yet, why her mummy was so upset or why a monster 222
had come into her room. She wanted another Fat Monster Eater.
Everyone promised her one. Chris had been pale as the proverbial ghost, somehow managing to smile at the little girl.
Gugwani had been completely out of control with grief and terror. Both of her bodyguards had been killed by a man with four arms ending in mouths. Reinforcements had arrived a moment before the biting started.
And the Doctor sat on the bench at the window of Leabie’s boardroom, head propped up in his hand, staring out at the surface of the moon. Completely still. Ignoring anyone who spoke to him. Of all of them, he was the one who worried Roz the most.
Duke Walid was standing nearby, looking as though he was desperate for something to do, someone to shoot. His clothes were torn, his dark hair in disarray, and Leabie’s personal physician was fussing over a deep gash in his arm. Security’s counterstrike had almost been a few seconds late for him. He’d saved Leabie’s life.
‘Who’s behind this?’ said the Duke, bewildered. ‘Who has the power to create these monsters out of innocent people?’
Roz looked at him pleadingly, and he walked up to her, taking Leabie from her grasp. Thank you, she mouthed.
‘I’ll