Doctor Who_ Transit - Ben Aaronovitch [48]
Blondie formed the words in his mind and pushed them towards the interface. It wasn't that different from the work he'd been doing in system maintenance.
'You won't notice any difference at the moment but the CPU won't let you fire unless it detects a weapon,' said Old Sam 'Now a few things to remember. You're wearing what's called "low threat" armour. Support troops used to wear it, medics, base personnel and the like. The breastplate, codpiece and greaves can take a direct hit from most projectile or energy weapons, the rest of it cannot. I'm not expecting real trouble but if we get into a firefight get your face in the dirt and I'll handle it.'
'What if you can't handle it?'
'I wouldn 't think about that contingency, my lad,' said Old Sam. 'I really wouldn't.'
Credit Card came over to join them. Blondie watched the silver kill icon hovering over his chest. As Credit Card got closer the icon refined its position until it was neatly aligned slightly to the left of his breastbone.
Bang, thought Blondie, straight through the heart.
He broke into a sudden sweat when he realized what he'd nearly done. No wonder Old Sam had him on failsafe.
'Visors up,' said Credit Card testily, 'or I'm not talking to either of you.'
Lowell Depot
The dead were waiting for them at the station. They lined the platform in four neat rows, tricked out in their best black bodybags for the special occasion. Pinned to the foot end of each bag was a white smart card, little robotic forget-me-nots to carry the dead into the inactive files of the system database. Some of the bags were far too short to contain adults.
The Doctor and Kadiatu had to step over them to reach the exit.
Kadiatu waited in the archway, watching as the Doctor unsealed one of the smaller bags. Caught a glimpse of the child's pale face and the puckered hole above its left eye. The Doctor looked up from the body and straight into her eyes. Kadiatu turned away, trying to catch her breath. The Doctor took her arm, leading her away from the platform, but she stumbled over nothing and fell against the wall.
'Cry,' said the Doctor.
Kadiatu cried for the first time since her parents' funeral. Her face buried in the Doctor's shoulder awkwardly bent over to reach his level. He didn't move, no arm put around her shoulders, no words of comfort. He just waited until she'd finished.
'Better?' he asked when she'd straightened up.
Kadiatu nodded.
'Lesson number one,' said the Doctor. 'Those that travel this road, walk alone.' Then he smiled and, reaching up, patted her cheek. 'But backup is always useful.'
It made her feel better but she was damned if she knew why.
For passengers a transit station consists of an entrance, the platforms and the concourses. For an engineer like Kadiatu they're much larger. Even the smallest branch station had a network of conduits, maintenance shafts, niches for cleaning robots, not to mention the parallel freight station with its handlers and cargo lifts.
Lowell Depot had been built during the post-war boom years. Pluto had been expected to soak up the population overspill from the more crowded worlds and the depot had massive overcapacity built in. That was before the Australian Famine and the Martian terraforming project, before the stop became the Stop. Like Kings Cross, it was a labyrinth of passageways and open space, only here mostly empty.
Finding their way to the main Central Line platform was going to be a problem.
An autokart raced towards them when they emerged on to a concourse, stopped suddenly a metre from their feet and beeped twice. Kadiatu looked at the Doctor, who shrugged. The kart beeped again and performed a neat three-point turn.
'Down boy,' said the Doctor. 'Sit, beg, roll over, play dead.'
'It's an autokart,' said Kadiatu.
'I think it wants us to get in.'
'That's not necessarily a good reason to do it, though. Is it?'
'More use than a ball of string,' said the Doctor and climbed aboard. Kadiatu followed him on and tried to find a comfortable position for her legs.
They sat there for a minute or two,