Autonomy Page 5

  And then the two suits of armour either side of the door stepped forward, halberds raised in both hands, and blocked his way.

  'Oh!' said the Doctor. 'Right. Um.' He swallowed hard.

  'No through road. Right, well... Back the way I came, then.'

  He turned to head back towards the main doors of the Hall - and, as he did so, they flew open with a theatrical thunderclap and another gust of cold wind.

  Two witches were hovering there, about a metre off the ground, gripping their broomsticks in gnarled yellow hands. Their black capes were streaming in the wind and their wizened green faces were lowered towards him, while thin-lipped mouths leered, showing yellow teeth.

  The Doctor's eyes opened in astonishment. 'Gas-jet levitation? You shouldn't have the technology for that.'

  As if to prove him wrong, the witches lifted slowly on their broomsticks, their eyes glowing yellow.

  They paused for a second, floating in mid air. Then they swooped towards the Doctor.

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  THREE

  'Ithoughtweagreed!"MaxCarson'svoicewassharp and

  angry in the vast, underground space. His footsteps echoed as he paced up and down in the vast, metallic blackness. His breath misted in the cold air. Harsh green light bathed him and Miss Devonshire.

  Sprawled in a leather swivel-chair, Miss Devonshire shrugged. 'She was a danger. She needed to be eliminated, Max.'

  Max Carson shook his head. 'I don't like it. Killing! That was never part of it." He glared up at her angrily. 'It's n-not what I agreed to!'

  Miss Devonshire shrugged and smiled. 'You're a part of it now, Max. Whether you like it or not.'

  That j-j-journalist woman. People will ask questions. Her friends, her family.' Max shivered, flapping his arms to keep

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  warm. Why, he thought, hadn't he brought a coat?

  'By then, it will be too late!'

  'What have you done with her?'

  Miss Devonshire tweaked her gold watch and a previously invisible hologram screen blossomed into life on the metallic wall. It showed a row of shop-window dummies, their plastic faces jet-black and glossy, their hair sculpted.

  Max shuddered. 'I don't really care for those things,' he said, trying to stop his teeth from chattering.

  'Max, Max, Max!' She gave him a broad, tight-lipped smile. He really didn't like Miss Devonshire's red-lipsticked smiles. They reminded him of a clown. 'You are talking about the foot-soldiers of my employers. Show a little respect!' She chuckled. 'Look closely,' she said, as the image panned across the department store.

  Max peered at the screen. He wondered for a minute what he was supposed to be looking for. Then he blinked.

  'No,' he said.

  'Oh, yes.'

  'But... how?'

  Plastinol-2. You should know, Max, you of all people.

  You helped us to develop it.'

  'But you said Plastinol-2 was going to be a good thing!

  That it would help the human race progress!'

  'Did I?' Miss Devonshire made a dismissive tchah sound.

  'You need to know nothing, Max, except that you, as promised, will be rewarded handsomely at the end of this.

  Handsomely enough to retire to Barbados. No...' She waved a hand. 'Go back out there and get on with doing what you do best. Be all butch and sinister." She growled at him. 'I love it when you do that.'

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  For a moment, Max Carson bristled with anger. Then he had a last look at the hologram screen, where he could see the last mannequin in the display picked out in sculpted, glossy waves of dark plastic - the mannequin with the unmistakable face of Andrea Watkins.

  Then he nodded grimly, turned on his heel and left.

  'Oh, Max,' Miss Devonshire called after him. 'You do flounce so wonderfully.'

  Maintenance Worker Jeff Smethwick was beginning to think he and Bob got all the dull jobs.

  Bob, proudly bald and in his sixties, was the oldest man employed on the Hyperville service team, while Jeff was the fresh-faced youngster, still within his probationary period.

  Bob didn't drink or smoke and worked out at the gym, and often made Jeff feel like the old one.

  Jeff, as he followed his experienced colleague through the tunnel, torch held at shoulder-height, was nervous -

  he'd never liked tunnels.

  He'd taken this job because he'd hated working in a factory, and he'd been assured he'd be assigned to the SherwoodZone, as close to the open air as it was possible to be without actually being outside.

  Deep in his heart, he really wanted to be a park ranger.

  But, so far, the job had seemed to involve a lot of tunnels, cupboards, lift shafts and other cramped spaces.

  'I'm telling you,' Bob was saying, as they made their way along the dingy maintenance tunnel, 'you can't put ham and cheese together. It isn't natural. Got to be one or the other.'

  Jeff grinned. It was a familiar argument. 'All right, Bob.

  I'm sure the world's going to fall apart because I've got an 55

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  unconventional sandwich filling. Where do you stand on pickle? Bob?'

  Bob had stopped, and swung round to face back down the service tunnel. 'I thought I heard something,' he said, shining his torch into the dark recesses.

  'Probably the rats,' Jeff suggested nervously.

  Bob gave a humourless smile. 'Rats, in Hyperville? Mr Carson would have kittens.'

  'Which would actually be quite a good idea,' said Jeff, aware that he was gabbling now to cover up his own nervousness. 'You know. Cats. Send them into the tunnels to—'

  'Sssh!' Bob held up a hand. There it is again! Didn't you hear it?' He activated the slim, orange wrist-radio which all the maintenance staff wore. 'I'm going to give Control a call.'

  'I didn't hear anything,' Jeff whispered.

  'Quiet, lad.' A hiss of static echoed through the tunnel, and Bob swore quietly, thumping the radio with the palm of his hand. 'Blasted things! The damn batteries are always playing up.' He cleared his throat. 'Wait here,' he said to Jeff, and set off back the way they had come.

  Jeff shivered. He saw Bob's silhouette recede into the darkness, and saw the wobbling aura of the torch-light disappearing round the corner. He paced up and down to stop himself from getting nervous. They weren't supposed to be left on their own, he thought worriedly. Not down here. Always work in pairs, that was the mantra.

  'Bob?' he called. 'Bob?'

  He could still just about see the glimmering light from Bob's torch from round the corner.

  His heart racing, the sweat making his armpits clammy, Jeff turned in a full circle, desperately trying to keep his torch on

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  all parts of the tunnel at once. 'Bob, are you there?' he called.

  He was sure he could hear something now. Further up the tunnel, where they hadn't been yet. Where was the hatch

  to

  the

  SherwoodZone?

  Jeff

  checked

  the

  maintenance-point number on the wall - 247. Only three checkpoints away from the hatch, so not that far - could be one of the exhibits playing up, he reasoned, trying to calm himself with logical thoughts. Or maybe it was one of the punters playing silly beggars.

  'Who's up there?' he called. 'Anyone?'

  For a second, Jeff was sure he caught a shape in the blaze of his torch, further into the tunnel near Maintenance Checkpoint 248. He jumped, and felt his heart pounding faster.

  'Bob!' he called over his shoulder. 'Bob, you there?'

  Jeff began to back up in the tunnel, his hand shaking as it held the torch.

  'Bob!' he shouted.

  Jeff walked backwards, training his flashlight on the place in the shadows where he had seen the figure.

  And a second later, he crashed straight into something.

  He gasped, jumping back - shining his
torch up into the shiny, bald head of his colleague.

  Jeff breathed a huge sigh of relief.

  'All right, lad,' Bob said gruffly. 'Don't go getting afraid of your own shadow, now.' He clapped a hand on Jeffs shoulder and jerked a thumb back down the corridor.

  There were a loose covering back there. Flapping in the draught. I fixed it back.'

  Jeff sensed relief coursing through his body, making him feel weak but also strangely re-energised. 'Can we get the job done and get out of here, mate? I don't like these places.'

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  'Come on, lad,' said Bob, smiling. He led the way down the tunnel towards Checkpoint 248, and then stopped short. 'Wait,' he said.

  Bob held his torch steady and shone it into the shadows ahead of them.

  Jeffs jaw dropped.

  Two dark figures stood there. They looked like ordinary people - a man and a woman, dressed smartly. Jeff thought, for a moment, that they looked bizarrely like guests at a wedding. The man wore a purple necktie with a matching light-purple shirt and a steely grey suit. The woman had a jacket and skirt in silver-grey, set off by a purple corsage and a bright, sparkly mauve fascinator in her hair. Jeff couldn't make out their faces in the gloom -

  they seemed strangely featureless, like robbers in stocking-masks.

  'You folks shouldn't be down here,' said Bob sharply.

  'What are you up to?'

  The interlopers lifted their arms, pointing at Bob and Jeff as if accusing them of something.

  The maintenance men looked at each other in puzzlement.

  Bob shook his head. I don't like this,' he said. 'Let's get back to 247. Seal this off and report it to Mr Carson.'

  Jeff nodded. They turned to make a break for it - and found their retreat blocked by another figure.

  This one was different.

  For a start, it was smaller — only the size of a child. Its burnished, plastic face reflected the light of the torches, and its eyes seemed to glow a dull red in the dimness.

  As the figure stepped forward, Jeff saw to his astonishment that it looked like a small girl, dressed in bright red trousers

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  and a white-and-pink striped jumper. But its face — its face was-The girl cackled, and lifted her arm to point at the two men.

  Her eyes glowed red.

  A second later, there was a bright crimson flash in the dimness, followed by a billow of pink smoke.

  Two torches dropped to the floor and rolled to the edge of the maintenance tunnel.

  Captain Tess Tilbrook stood on the helipad on the roof of the ShopZone, her cropped grey hair unruffled by the wind. She was flanked by two impassive, black-uniformed guards armed with sub-machine guns.

  Just a few years earlier, Tess thought, it would have been impossible for Sir Gerry to run the place like this.

  Armed guards, CCTV everywhere, ID mapping of every customer's preferences through the HyperCards... These days, with everything that had happened in the world, it was almost expected. It would seem strange if the Chief Exec didn't demand extra monitoring and protection for his customers.

  Tess wasn't sure she liked the idea very much. But Head of Security at Hyperville was a very well-paid job. She was bringing up two teenage sons on her own, and employment was an increasingly precarious thing to have in this day and age.

  What Sir Gerry and the Corporation paid her enabled her to meet the mortgage on a house in a very nice part of town, to have two holidays a year with her sons, and to indulge her hobbies of canoeing and abseiling every weekend. On her last canoeing trip she'd met Kevin, a divorced bloke with nice

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  eyes who'd asked her out for a drink. They were going on their second date this weekend.

  A shadow fell over the helipad, and Tess looked up, shading her eyes. 'Look out, lads,' she muttered. 'Here he comes.'

  The big, black shape of the helicopter began to descend, the accompanying wind whipping at their uniforms.

  Almost as soon as it touched down, he emerged, ducking under the rotor-blades — the immaculate figure of Paul Kendrick.

  Tess couldn't help a feeling of pride as she saw England's national hero striding towards her in his Armani suit and Police shades. With his gleaming white teeth and spiky blond hair, Kendrick was football's pin-up boy, but he was still the best player England had produced in the last twenty years. He'd seemed to emerge from nowhere -

  even Tess, who followed football with her boys, had been surprised. Within two years he was captaining England, and at the Euro 2012 semi-final against Spain he'd put the winning goal into the back of the net. It was only Kendrick's absence through injury, it was generally agreed, which had prevented England from taking the trophy in the final against Portugal.

  Paul Kendrick grinned, offering her his hand. He had a very firm grip, Tess noticed. 'All right,' he said affably. He gave her a big, shiny grin, but she couldn't read his eyes behind his mirror-lenses.

  'Captain Tess Tilbrook, head of security. Did you have a good trip, Mr Kendrick?'

  'Yeah. Not bad. Call me Paul.' He buttoned his jacket, as if nervous, and looked around the helipad. 'Sir Gerry not here?'

  Tess smiled. 'Sir Gerry and Mr Carson have been delayed on business matters, I'm afraid. But if you'd like to come with me? Shaneeqi's done her warm-up signing in the Plaza, and

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  we're having the reception tonight in the Aura Casino.'

  'Nice one,' said Paul Kendrick.

  A man of few words, thought Tess. He was never especially loquacious in interviews. It was something of a standing joke that his answers were always the standard footballer clichés, where he assured reporters that the boys had done good and it had been a game of two halves.

  But Tess couldn't shake the idea that he had something on his mind today. She was going to wonder what it was, but then remembered that she wasn't paid to wonder.

  'Come this way,' she said, and she and the guards led the young England captain across the helipad towards the lift.

  'Mr Carson?'

  Max spun round in his chair, raising an eyebrow. It was one of the younger Trainees, he noted, striding with false confidence across the gantry that connected his chair-platform to the outer door. She stood there, hands clasped confidently in front of her, but betraying her nervousness by swivelling on one heel.

  'Yes?' said Max with a sigh. He was still disconcerted by his meeting with Miss Devonshire, and the last thing he wanted now was another problem.

  'Kate Maguire from the Trainees, Mr Carson.' She smiled.

  'Yes, yes, I remember you. Get to the point.'

  Her smile vanished. 'Um. Oh, sorry. Mr Kendrick's just arriving. Thought I'd let you know.'

  'Mr Kendrick?'

  'Yes, ah, Shaneeqi's husband. The footballer. You know.

  Goldenball Paul, Kicker Kendrick, last-minute penalty in Euro 2012. Did you watch that? It was brilliant.'

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  Max Carson spread his hands. 'Why, precisely, are you telling me this?'

  Kate blushed. 'I'm sorry, sir. I thought you'd find the information interesting.'

  Max gestured languidly around him at the curved wall with its honeycomb of CCTV screens. 'Let me tell you some information you will find interesting, Miss Maguire. From here, I see everything, OK? I'm the Director of Operations. I know what's going on in Hyperville. The cameras, the Oculators, the sound-bugs - everything keeps me informed. If somebody sneezes, Max Carson knows about it.' He gave her a brief, dazzling smile. 'Clear?'

  Kate looked abashed. 'Clear, sir. Sorry, sir.' Then she frowned and lowered her glasses. 'What's going on there?' she asked, pointing at one of the screens near the top left of the display.

  Max Carson whirled round. 'Enlarge and focus!' he ordered.

  The plasma screen in front of him leapt into life. It was that idiotic man from before, Max saw - the one
who had interfered with the ticket machine. He appeared to be in the Hall of the Doomcastle Sector, backing slowly away from two of the Witch-bots, while two of the Knight-bots stalked towards him from behind.

  Max clenched his fists. I think it's about time we had a word with our friend.'

  'Who is he?' asked Kate curiously, leaning forward.

  It was almost, thought Max for a second, as if she recognised him.

  'A criminal,' said Max dismissively. 'One with some...

  unusual technology.'

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  He remembered that Sir Gerry had given instructions for the Trainees to be allowed to go anywhere they liked and ask any questions they wanted. And Sir Gerry, for the moment, was in charge.

  'It looks as if he's in danger,' said Kate worriedly.

  Max smiled. 'Only as long as I allow him to be.'

  You mean only as long as Miss Devonshire does, said the little voice inside his head.

  'Ladies,' said the Doctor. 'I hate to seem rude, but I was really just about to leave.'

  The two witches circled him on their broomsticks, pointed noses lowered at him and green eyes glowing. The Doctor was acutely aware of the two armoured knights behind him as well, clunking and clanking forward, both with halberds raised high above their shoulders.

  Thing is, I don't really know if you realise this, but this whole set-up is meant to scare kids. And I'm, well, about a thousand years old. Well, nine hundred and fifty... Well, nine hundred. Look, all right, I get mixed up. I lost a few birthdays somewhere.'

  He backed slowly away, jumping onto the low table which ran the length of the Hall.

  One of the knights suddenly swung its halberd into the table, missing the Doctor by centimetres. He jumped backwards. The witches rose, their blank, plastic Halloween-masks staring firmly ahead.

  'You know, I think if you reeeeeally wanted to kill me you'd have done it by now.' He held his hands up. That's not an invitation or anything. Don't get me wrong.'

  The witches hurtled forward.

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  They crashed into the Doctor, their broomsticks knocking into his shoulders and pitching him over onto the array of metal crockery on the table.