Downtime - Marc Platt [66]
The unobtainable tone cut in on the line.
‘Danny? Danny!’
Anthony slammed a fist on his console. He pulled off his cans. The tone on Line One was breaking up, becoming a series of high-pitched staccato blips.
Danny’s paper was bubbling up with a sort of frothy web.
The stuff had spread like a malignant growth onto the console.
Anthony pulled back and moved towards the door. It was jammed. He pulled and tugged at the handle before he realized that the fire lock had been operated automatically by the computer.
The endless run of blips was getting louder and louder.
Behind him, the frothing web hissed and spluttered with a voracious glee.
The stream of blips knifed into Danny’s ear. He yelled and flung away the mobile phone. It struck a rock and cut off.
Danny dropped to his knees and retched. As he caught at his breath, he heard the tramp behind him shouting and complaining.
‘What you after? Bloody Chillys! I’m going to get the law.’
‘Think they’d believe you?’ Danny snapped without looking up.
They had got well away from the campus, out onto an abandoned allotment that bordered the canal. The tramp, who was well-known round the university – a sort ofjoke or mascot
– had helped carry him after they had escaped the garage, but Danny had to make the phone call, if only to warn someone.
There were things he had discovered at New World. Things he’d unearthed, but didn’t understand. And now the things, whatever they were, were coming for him.
‘Sir, I never hurt no one. Not me, sir. Not old Harrods.’ The old guy, filthy-dirty and crazy as he was, seemed to be genuinely concerned. He was scrabbling down to reach the phone.
‘Don’t!’ shouted Danny and the tramp cringed.
Then a wicked grin cracked over his sun-baked face. ‘Sir, flew right down, you did. Glided right down out of that place.’
He spread his arms like a kid being a jet-plane and whistled himself down. ‘Don’t need jets no more, sir!’ He cackled and capered a little dance. Then just as suddenly his eyes were full of fear. He glanced back at the distant ziggurats of the university. ‘And then he comes after us, like an old spidery man.’
‘He’s coming for all of us,’ declared Danny and grabbed Harrods by the coat. ‘That money you nicked from me’s no good to anyone. Period. Not unless you help me.’
Harrods’ eyes narrowed. ‘You got more?’
Danny shot him a look of withering contempt and he started to whimper. ‘Sir, I got principles. I’m very particular.’
But he kept his hand on the money in his pocket.
‘You’ve seen what’s coming,’ said Danny and they both stared again at the distant buildings.
‘Yes, sir.’ Harrods twisted his head and looked up at the young man with a sense of wonder. Danny was squinting into the depths of the upper air.
‘That’s only half of what I can see,’ he said. ‘There’s someone we have to find fast.’
18
By Appointment
t took the Brigadier three-quarters of an hour pushing Ithrough oncoming crowds to reach Great Portland Street.
He cut up through Covent Garden – the old market streets where he had once led a squad against the invading Yeti. The robots had had no apparent strategy. They were like shaggy tanks, formidable and virtually unstoppable killers. The trendy piazza with its fashionable shops seemed a world away from the battlefield where he had lost so many men.
It was going to be a day for memories. He reached Great Portland Street at last and headed into the august portals of the Alexander Hotel. He could remember when the building had been a gentlemen’s club. The Victorian Gothic facade remained, but the inside had been gutted and renewed. The once agreeably fusty reception area was now all mirrors and chrome. Pleasantly vacuous music was being piped in from somewhere. The smiling girl at the reception desk with her
‘Hi. Welcome to the Alexander Hotel,’ was as innocuous as a strawberry milkshake.
‘Lethbridge-Stewart to see Cavendish,’ he announced.
He noticed that the receptionist, who was wearing headphones, was seated at a computer which actually seemed to be working. She indicated the double doors across