Doctor Who_ Transit - Ben Aaronovitch [105]
The human race had gone and poked their finger right into the hornet's nest. Meddling with forces that they had no understanding of, as per usual. They had punched a gateway by mistake from one dimension to another.
And now the Doctor was here again, to rectify that mistake and swat the hornet.
Providing there was something soft for him to collide with at Acturus Terminal.
The hitchhiker was waiting in the next tunnel. The Doctor felt its ghost-like presence in the shifting harmonies of the interstitial webs that surrounded him.
It couldn't communicate in any normal sense but its desires were plain to the Doctor. It wanted to go where he was going.
'Climb aboard,' he said. 'Always room for one more.'
There was a painful sense of pressure behind his eyes and he hoped that it was purely psychosomatic. He hit the penultimate station at two hundred kilometres an hour, the wind ripped at his clothes.
'There were eight in the bed,' the Doctor sang to himself, 'and the little one said, "Roll over, roll over." So they all rolled over and one fell out ...'
The Doctor went into the last tunnel.
Acturus Terminal (Stunnel Terminus)
Mariko kept Naran close to her where she could keep an eye on him. She had been feeling strangely dislocated since they'd hit the station. Inside the bright dojo other mind the shoji doors had been slamming shut one by one. The bright colours behind them fading to a dull grey. Mariko didn't think she had long left, but that was OK, she'd had fun while it lasted.
The plan had been simple and straightforward so far. Smash the black train through the barricades, kill everybody in the station. The first had been easy, the second was proving more difficult. The enemy had been better equipped than anticipated and they'd used up a lot of razyedka in the initial assault.
They also had reinforcements in the galleria; two-thirds of Mariko's force were engaged in keeping them out of the station. Her personal krewe were trying to mop up the enemy in front of the Stunnel gateway. In the thick smoke the razvedka had to rely on their sense of smell to find them.
A shoji that had always stayed shut and displayed no symbol finally opened. The final knowledge flooded into Mariko's consciousness.
Ah, thought Mariko, so that's the plan.
It would have been easier, thought Benny as she listened to the gunfire, just to poison everyone. She'd suggested it as a course of action but it didn't think like that. That level of subtlety seemed, like the threat of the Doctor, beneath its comprehension.
She'd pulled the veil and headdress off as soon as she'd closed the canteen's shutters, glad to get out of the restricting black clothes. She sat down on the kitchen floor, putting the solid width of the counter between her and any stray bullets. It wouldn't do to be taken out by accident.
She checked her watch, an unnecessary action given the way the plan was ticking away in her head. In any case the symbols on its face had lost their meaning to her.
It was time to get moving.
Benny crawled through the connecting door and into the storage bay. A double line of food lockers were racked against both walls. She stood up and banged on the locker nearest the door.
'Rise and shine,' she said. 'Up and at 'em.'
The locker door swung open to reveal two razvedka curled up inside. One of them craned its neck to look at her.
'Already?' it asked. 'I was dreaming.'
'Everything is a dream,' said Benny. 'I thought you knew that.'
'There's dreams,' said the razvedka, 'and there's dreams.'
'Get up,' said Benny, 'or we'll be late.'
The Stunnel gateway shone like a sun, burning a corridor through the smoke. Mariko, with Naran at her shoulder, walked towards the light.
There was still fighting to either side. Mariko's mind received impressions of the combat. To her right a terrible figure in armour who moved like the wind and struck like