• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Dogface had his arm around Old Sam's shoulders. The veteran was shaking badly, there was a weasel madness in his slotted eyes. Dogface was talking low and fast, trying to get Old Sam off whichever memory shore he'd beached on Lambada was assembling an industrial calibre hypo, her face fixed into a concentrated grin as she clipped it together. When the device was complete she walked up behind Old Sam, placed its blunt head against his thigh and squeezed the trigger. The hiss went on for a long time, and when it finished Old Sam toppled over with a look of intense happiness fixed on his face.

'Doberman,' said Lambada disgustedly.

Blondie found something protruding from the blue.

'What's this?'

Lambada had a look. 'Portable comms link.'

'Did someone drop it?'

Lambada and Dogface exchanged worried looks. 'Blondie,' said Lambada, 'it's an internal unit. It's implanted and runs parallel to the spinal column.'

Under the skin.

'What is this stuff?' asked Dogface.

'I don't know,' said Lambada.

'Look at the splatter patterns, they all radiated from the gateway.'

'As if something came through and ...' Lambada made a sweeping motion with her hands. They ended up looking into the entrance gateway to the Central Line extension.

'Yeah,' said Dogface, 'but why blue?'

'I don't know.'

'I don't get it,' said Blondie. 'Where is everyone, where's the President?'

'I think we're standing in them,' said Dogface.

Translonian

The Worthing-Le Havre branch line was operating close to normal so Kadiatu and the Doctor rode the train to Caen and changed on to the Fracais-Sardegna Feeder. People were riding the long blue commuter trains and Kadiatu began to feel normal again. The Doctor was quiet all the way to Porto Torres, which at least gave her a good ten minutes' thinking time. Not that she thought of anything much.

'Where are we now?' asked the Doctor.

'Sardinia.'

'Really?'

'Yes.'

'How extraordinary,' said the Doctor. 'Where are we going now?'

'We're going to ride the Connection.'

The Translonian should have been a feeder route, shiny blue trains should have shuttled commuters from the sea cities of the Ionian sea, but the floating cities were never built, just the anchor points and the transit stations underneath. Now it was good for nothing except a slow crawl to Athinai. Whatever had swept through Kings Cross wasn't going to travel this line. Only dealers and punters rode the Connection.

An ancient Korean single-carriage train was waiting with its doors open. Green paint peeled off the superstructure, its windows were opaque with dirt, the inside smelt strongly of sweat and urine.

Kadiatu warned the Doctor not to sit down.

At the rear of the compartment a filthy bundle of rags unfolded, and yellow eyes glared at them from under a leather slouch hat.

'Who's that?' asked the Doctor.

'That's the conductor.'

The conductor grunted in their direction before shambling over to the open doorway. When he leaned out Kadiatu caught a glimpse of gunmetal blue slung beneath his jacket.

'Anymore for anymore,' shouted the conductor.

Satisfied that no one else was boarding, the conductor collapsed back into his seat. The doors closed with a wheeze of ageing hydraulics and the train lurched off towards the gateway. There was a jolt as the carriage penetrated the interface, shafts of light strobed through the imperfect shielding. The seats were too sticky to sit on, so Kadiatu and the Doctor hung on to the straps against the train's erratic motion.

'First stop,' called the conductor from the back. 'Women's clothing, lingerie, pharmaceuticals.'

The train slowed as it entered the first station but it didn't stop. Instead the doors cranked open on override as they coasted slowly through. On the platform crowds of people milled around stalls and bundles of merchandise. The smell of cheap perfume wafted inside the carriage. A woman jumped nimbly onboard near the front of the carriage, and somebody on the platform started throwing bundles of cloth which she caught. By the end of the station she had a small pile stacked on the seats