Doctor Who_ Transit - Ben Aaronovitch [49]
'Central Line platform,' she said, 'please.'
The kart moved off down the concourse.
'Ah,' said the Doctor, 'the magic word.'
Entering the next concourse was like driving on to a building site. A line of yellow and black-striped drones were parked against one wall. Streaks of dirty black soot ran along their flanks, some of them showed extensive damage and signs of small arms fire.
'Fire-fighters,' said Kadiatu.
Small crablike robots scuttled over the drones, slipping in and out of open inspection panels. There were painful flashes of blue light as they electrowelded patches over damaged bodywork.
'This must be the forward workshop,' said the Doctor, 'where the walking wounded are patched up and sent back to the front.'
'No wonder the line was closed to passengers,' said Kadiatu. 'They must have been moving all this up.'
A blue police-drone buzzed the kart and scanned them with bursts of pink laser light.
'Oh shit,' said Kadiatu. 'We're going to get busted.'
The drone kept pace with the kart for a moment before becoming suddenly uninterested in them and gliding away.
'Did you do that?' asked Kadiatu.
'No,' said the Doctor, 'did you?'
'No.'
There was a knot of technicians at the end of the concourse. They were clustered around a projected map of the area. Kadiatu noticed that a lot of it was marked red for danger. The Doctor doffed his hat at them as the kart buzzed past.
'Hey,' shouted a voice behind them, 'who the hell are you?'
'As soon as we find out,' Kadiatu shouted back, 'we'll let you know.'
There were more drones in the next concourse and the next. They passed an assault model doing downtime, surrounded by worried-looking soldiers dressed in dirty olive green. Some malfunction must have popped all its jack turrets; lethal weapons sprung out at full extension like a busted puzzle box.
They heard the people before they saw them - a low restless muttering cut through with the sound of crying babies. The noise was funnelled down the passageway, slowly growing to overwhelm the hum of the kart's electric motor.
The living were more unruly than the dead. They did not lie quietly in ordered ranks. Instead they were spread out in chaotic patterns, whirls and loops that formed around family units. Some were standing, some sat crosslegged or leant against the walls. Some lay on the floor, curled up tight in fetal positions. Relief workers moved amongst them, wearing fluorescent donkey jackets with agency names on their backs - OXFAM, MEDAID, HIGGINS TRUST. They looked like a species of bright yellow wading bird picking over a beach.
'How many, do you think?'
'In here?' asked the Doctor. 'About a thousand.'
It was like the archive footage of the Australian famine. Worse, because Kadiatu was here amongst it, riding down the narrow corridor between the refugees. Only a few bothered to watch them pass.
'They must be evacuating the whole project,' said Kadiatu.
A line of refugees wound out of the concourse. A relief worker and a soldier were stationed every ten metres or so down the line. Periodically the refugees would silently shuffle a few steps forward and stop again. On the straight stretches you could see the shuffle working itself up the line like a sine wave.
The autokart followed the line down a long curved ramp that terminated on the platform. A tall Ethiopian was standing at the bottom; he waved his clipboard in front of the kart's motion sensor until it stopped.
'There's no room for this,' he said banging the bonnet. 'It'll have to go back.'
The Doctor and Kadiatu clambered out of the kart. A big sleek InterWorld train was waiting in the station. Refugees were being herded on board by sweating STS staff.
'Home boy,' said the Doctor to the kart. It beeped one last time and reversed back up the ramp.
Kadiatu watched as an old man was lifted into the train. He was slack mouthed and his eyes were deeply disinterested Tranquillized, guessed