Doctor Who_ Transit - Ben Aaronovitch [98]
The situational realists maintained that the period's apprehension about their power systems stemmed from the primitive safety standards. Benny herself had defended that position during a drunken argument that followed a conference at the Institute of Human Ecology on Cygni VI.
One of the couple on the sofa made the mistake of standing up to see what was happening. The shell blew the top of her head off.
The Silurians felt that it was the manifestation of humanity's deep-seated guilt complex about their ruthless exploitation of the homeworid. But then, the Silurians said that about everything.
The remaining woman on the sofa was a bit more experienced and rolled out of Benny's line of fire. The first shot blew a fist-sized hole in an easy chair.
Benny had read a paper that attributed it to the upheavals following the first ecological crisis. She'd read it because it came at the extreme end of her own period. The title had been The Role of the Butler Institute in the Terran Post-Nuclear Period.
The woman tried to scramble behind the entertainment console. Benny stepped to one side and shot her in the back before she could get up.
She couldn't remember who wrote the paper.
The control room was protected by double doors of plexiglass. Through them she could see the technicians panicking at her approach. One of them was talking urgently into a phone, someone was shouting, she could hear it as a murmur through the doors.
Professor Beal-Carter-Kzanski, she remembered, that's who'd written the paper. She'd read it while travelling middle berth to Heaven; she usually caught up with the journals in transit There had been some interesting stuff about youth gangs and eco-terrorists.
Benny didn't bother with the nine-digit security keypad by the doors. She just stood there and waited patiently for them to open of their own accord. There was a high-pitched sound filtering through the sound-proofed doors.
Inside the control room someone was screaming.
Kadiatu pulled the pistol from the holster after they encountered the first body. The Doctor gave her a hard look but said nothing: what could he say?
There were more bodies in a small refreshment area. Kadiatu recognized the signature of the exit wounds, the way the ragged edges of the wound pushed through rents torn in the clothes. She concentrated hard on the injuries to avoid looking at the people. There was a strong smell of cordite, blood and coffee.
The Doctor picked up the fallen coffee jug and set it carefully back on the counter.
Kadiatu zipped the major's jacket up to her neck.
The Doctor pointed down the corridor and opened his mouth to say something.
The jacket saved Kadiatu's life.
The kinetic energy of the soft-nosed slug was dissipated by the flexible sheet of kevlar sewn into the lining of the jacket. Enough to stop the projectile from blowing out her chest but not enough to stop her from being smashed forward into the Doctor's arms.
The Doctor grabbed the collar of her jacket in his left hand and pulled her further off balance. Kadiatu instinctively realized what he was doing and let herself be spun round as her forward momentum was translated around the pivot of his arm.
As she turned she saw the coffee jug leave his right hand and fly across the room. He must have picked it up in the same moment as their attacker fired the first shot.
The jug bounced off the attacker's face with a hollow bong sound and a spurt of blood. Her hand came up to cover her nose.
'Not again,' said Benny.
Kadiatu shot her, three bursts, vaporized flesh blooming like pink carnations on Benny's chest. The Doctor was by her side before she hit the ground.
'Where's the real Benny?' he asked.
The woman made a weak gurgling sound, laughing. There were three icecream-scoop-sized craters in her upper ribcage. Kadiatu couldn't believe she was still alive.
'Actually, I thought I was the real Benny,' whispered the ersatz Benny. The eyes flickered