Doctor Who_ Transit - Ben Aaronovitch [82]
'When you've quite finished,' said Yak Harris, 'can we talk?'
Dogface decided that a stand should be taken somewhere. 'I don't talk to drug-induced hallucinations,' he said.
'Well,' said Yak Hams, 'leaving aside the innate contradiction inherent in that statement, we are not a hallucination, drug-induced or otherwise.' There was a sort of inaudible click and the Yak Harris changed. 'Unless you subscribe to the idea that all computer-generated images are by their nature hallucinatory.'
That click again. The image and voice remained unchanged but Dogface had a strong impression of two personalities speaking through one construct.
'Nothing in your medication could possibly induce such a hallucinatory state anyway, (click) And we should know, given the amount of medical knowledge we've assimilated, (click) In fact, in a fundamental way we have become the entire body of human medical knowledge, (click) Trust me, we didn't enjoy it. You people were put together on a bad day.'
'Who are you?'
'We're a subset.'
'Why are there two of you?'
'Actually we're two subsets,' said one of the Yak Harrises, 'We met us coming the other way. (click) Which we didn't enjoy either.'
'Subsets of what?' asked Dogface.
They told him.
He didn't believe it.
'What do you want from me?'
'We're looking for the Doctor, but we got you instead, (click) All that medicine, we were impressed, (click) You see we're restricted by the criteria of our operations, (click) We know he's on Mars, we traced him through a communication with a third party, (click) The Angel Francine. (click) A transit order for unusual equipment, (click) An aircraft, (click) We think he may be out of position.'
'Out of position for what?'
'We don't know. (click) We didn't tell us that.'
'Who's the Doctor?' asked Dogface.
They told him.
He didn't believe that either.
Olympus Mons West
She threw the remote control at Benny's head. It was just a palm-sized bit of bakelite but Benny staggered when it hit her in the face. She paused to probe the gash it left in her cheek She looked first at the blood on her fingers, and then at Zamina.
'Is that any way to treat an old friend?'
Zambia rolled off the couch and pushed it with all her strength at Benny's legs. Benny jumped it easily, landing with a cat's grin.
'Zimmy,' she said in a hurt voice.
But Zambia wasn't listening, her brain was locked deep into an instinct cycle of aggression/revulsion - the characteristic human response to spiders. She made an adrenaline-charged desperation lunge for Benny, trying to knock her down so she could get through the door.
Benny grabbed Zambia's wrists and fought to drag them down to her waist. The older woman was too strong, Zamina felt her arms being slowly pinned to her sides. Their faces were so close that Zamina could smell the sickly sweet vanilla ice cream on penny's breath. Zamina swung her head back and snapped it forward, there was a loud crack and light exploded in her eyes.
Benny staggered backwards, hands flying automatically to cover her bleeding nose. Zamina lashed out with her fists, striking Benny full in the right breast. There's nothing you can teach a girl from the Stop about fighting duly. She'd been on dates more violent than this.
Benny doubled over, curling around the pain in her chest. Zambia kicked her in the side of the head as she passed.
There were cake monsters in the corridor outside. Zamina saw their spiny heads swing round to face her as she left the crew room. She didn't wait for them to react and ran for her life.
She turned a comer and found herself in a long corridor lined with doors, she ran past them. She didn't want to get trapped in no room with the cake monsters after her.
A man stepped out of one of the doors ahead. He was wearing tan slacks and a button-down blouse and was carrying a clipboard. He looked up to see Zamina bearing down on him. She tried to yell some kind of warning as she went past but she didn't have any breath left over from running.
There was a scream behind her that was quickly drowned