Doctor Who_ The Also People - Ben Aaronovitch [68]
'But now,' said the man with no name, 'it's time for you to be put back in the box.'
It was a doll's box like the one her old doll had come in, the talking one which came with sixty-eight programmable African languages and realistic braidable hair, the doll that she had slept with until, aged thirteen, she'd taken it apart to see how it worked.
She'd screamed at her mother when she'd first been given that doll. It wasn't the one she wanted, the one she had asked for in the months that crept so slowly to her birthday. She'd wanted the doll which did the karate moves and had a realistic gun that shot a real low-powered laser beam. She screamed and screamed until her father had come running into the house and raised his hand to her for the first and only time in her life.
She looked at the box. There was a picture of herself on the lid, wearing an impractically brief hostile environment suit and carrying a realistic gun that shot a real laser beam.
The lid fell open like a hungry mouth. The box was empty.
The man with no name was very close now, although she'd had no sense, no warning, of his approach. There was a syringe in his hand, its needle a metre long lance of stainless steel, its clear body filled with a liquid the colour of arterial blood.
'I can honestly say,' said the man with no name, 'that this will hurt me more than it hurts you.'
He reached out to grab her, his hand so large that his thumb and forefinger could encircle her waist.
And then she was running.
Running down tracks in the forest that were familiar from a thousand childish games. She'd run down these tracks with other children, a little ultrasonic generator braided into her hair to scare away the animals. But she hadn't liked wearing it because she could hear its low persistent whining sound.
Running down the main road, past the High School and the Transit Station, never mind that Mekeni was a hundred kilometres from the coast.
Running past the football pitch, still showing the burn marks from the Angel Francine's last visit.
Running to her street. To her house. To her parents' bedroom. To the vast white expanse of her parents' bed where her mother was sleeping off the effects of her medication.
And then, ever so carefully so as not to disturb her, creeping under the warm, mother-smelling blankets and curling close to her mother's body. Safe where the man with no name would never find her.
There was something in the bed with her. She could hear breathing in the darkness, long slow breaths. She could feel rough fur tickling her shoulder, smooth, slightly cool skin pressed against her side. There was an aroma of sweat, leaves, roasted fish and forest earth.
There was somebody in the bed with Roz and a voice said by her ear – 'If you want to live, don't move.'
Roz figured she could roll off the bed and be out of the line of fire in a moment, but then what?
She wasn't wearing anything, her armour was in a sandy heap in the corner of the bedroom and her blaster was in its carry case by the bathroom door. She could yell for help but she had a horrible suspicion that the sound proofing in the villa was as efficient as everything else.
'I'm going to glow a little,' said the voice.
She saw it from the corner of her eye – she dared not move her head – a soft oval of light bisected by a thick black line, a wavy pattern in thinner lines set over two dark ovals. A drone
'face'. Abstract features set in a worried frown. The glow gave a shape to the darkness in the room. Roz could see an arm flung out of the covers and across her chest. A dark-skinned human arm with the right number of fingers, joints and knuckles in all the right places. A female arm, that ran up to a shoulder taut with muscles. Roz had a good idea whose arm it was, whose cool body was pressed up against her like a child in her mama's bed.
'I'm going to extend a contour field between you and her,' said the drone. 'Once I've done that you should be able to ease yourself out.'
The contour field was imperceptible except for