Doctor Who_ Transit - Ben Aaronovitch [24]
So Kadiatu grew up with stories about the metal giants, the wicked machines and the spiders that could think. Later in the vast history archive under Stone Mountain, by the Cayley plains on Lunar, she learnt that every last story' was true. In themne the language of her parents, Shirl was the word for medicine man, for magician, for doctor.
There was a disturbance at the end of the carriage. A man was shouting something in a hoarse voice. A wave of unease swept down the length of the train. 'What's happening?' called a woman opposite Kadiatu. A man lurched to his feet and started down the aisle towards them, naked distress on his face. 'They've killed the President,' he said, 'somebody blew up the President' The Doctor muttered something in his sleep.
3: Bad Acid Macho
Pluto Ninety-Five
It was infinity that did it for Mariko, watching that insane vanishing point explode as they hit another station. Crouching low to minimise air resistance as the board skated down the friction field. Naran hooting behind her, one arm wrapped around her waist, the other keeping the noisebox on his shoulder as they rushed towards the gateway. Then winding up through the rhythm of the music, letting the beat be her ladder as they hit the gateway. The transition blast blew her brains out her ears. Nothing else, not sex, not wacca, could get close to that.
They picked up the tail on the other side of Van Der Voek Station, a dusty no-place where a low-cost housing project had been abandoned. Naran banged her on the shoulder and she looked round. Behind them a black wedge of shadow eclipsed the vanishing point. It didn't look solid enough to be a train; besides, no one ran trains on the P-95 and a board was faster in the abstract nonsense that passed for velocity in a tunnel. The shadow was gaining on them, or at least it was getting larger.
Mariko downloaded a traffic update as they coasted through the next station. She scaled up through a mantra to get into the next gateway and flipped down her visor for a look. An implant would have been better, but subdermal accessories were passe, far too common amongst artisans and the great unwashed. Getting one would be a sign of commitment though. Perhaps a modified optic with a discreet little plug under the hairline. Something she could accidentally reveal at parties, that would cause a stir, might even start a trend. The traffic update showed nothing on this stretch of the P-95 but that didn't surprise Mariko; you needed a transponder to be marked and she didn't think the shadow behind her had one.
Distance was impossible to judge in a tunnel but Mariko was sure that the shadow was gaming on them. She knew that some of the classier security firms like Ninja Mechanixs had trained free surfers, there were also rumours that the military had souped-up machines. Trains that could outpace anything in the system, with exclusion shielding so that if you and it emerged at the same time, it would be there and you'd be paintwork.
Mariko risked another look. Free boarding relies on absolute self-control and already she could feel herself drifting off line, losing the complicated harmonics of the music.
The shadow was almost upon them. Deep in its core Mariko thought she saw two red lights like staring eyes. It was time, she decided, to get real.
As they came out of the next gateway Mariko shifted her weight to the left and bore down hard. Naran followed her lead and the board swerved across the friction field. They dismounted before it hit the platform barrier and flipped. Mariko caught it on the second turn.
'Where are we?' asked Naran.
Mariko looked around. It was another ghost station. Minimal life support kept the temperature just above freezing; their breaths steamed in the cold