Doctor Who_ The Tomorrow Windows Part 4

'Yeah! Most students stay in these things. Enviro-podules. A man comes round once a week to replenish the oxygen. The oxygen man, I call him.' The electric kettle clicked off with a gurgle and a snap.

'What do you study?'

'I don't, if I can help it!' Martin handed Trix a mug, and sank into an armchair, s.h.i.+fting aside a pile of FHM FHM s. Leaning across the armrest, he slid a CD into his stereo and some Moby drifted out of the speakers. s. Leaning across the armrest, he slid a CD into his stereo and some Moby drifted out of the speakers.

'Too busy blowing up art galleries?'

'You saw the news. No one got killed. I just locked the Ken bloke in his office and made an android doppelganger. Non-violent protest. Right-on! Power to the people!'

'You don't think that's a bit extreme?' Trix sipped her tea. It was sweet and strong. The world relaxed around her.

Martin stood up and paced across the room. He drummed his fingers on a shelf and pursed his lips, as though withholding anger. 'Ask yourself, Trixie Trix why why does Mackerel want to put an end to history? Because he wants to see Earth sold on to a multigalactic, that's why!' does Mackerel want to put an end to history? Because he wants to see Earth sold on to a multigalactic, that's why!'

'You're one-hundred per cent sure about this?'

Martin sifted through a pile of art books and dug out a leaflet. He presented it to Trix as though it made his case for him. 'Super-sure. Double-sure with sure topping. Undeveloped worlds are protected, you see. They can't be built on, not when there's an indigenous culture.'

Trix examined the leaflet.

It had been published by the Galactic Heritage Foundation and comprised a guide to 'listed' planets. The typeface was smudgy and laid out like a parish newsletter or student paper.

'I've "handed back the reins of history" to mankind,' proclaimed Martin, his eyes wide.

Trix tried not to laugh. He was so serious, his feelings would be hurt. 'Is that from your leaflet?'

'Yeah.' Martin s.n.a.t.c.hed back the leaflet. 'That's my mission.'

Trix took another sip of tea and let her head fall back on a cus.h.i.+on. Outside, the galaxy calmly drifted. She looked at Martin. This idealistic puppy-dog 26 routine had to be an act. No one could be that naive. She would let him think she believed him. Find out what he was really up to. 'And that's what the Galactic Heritage Foundation do?'

'No, they're more into preventing the trade in green-world sites, that sort of thing. And leafleting, they do a lot of quite powerful leafleting.'

'But you '

'You've got to take direct action like the Doctor would do!'

Trix felt sleepy and nuzzled her cheek into a cus.h.i.+on. The music seemed to waft over her. 'Yes, like the Doctor.'

'Tell me more about him. It's so amazing to meet, like, his companion!

What's it like? Have you ever met K9?'

Trix rubbed her forehead, trying to keep her eyes open. 'He's a mysterious traveller in time and s.p.a.ce,' she said with mock reverence. 'Always defeats the bad guy.'

She found that Martin was stroking her hair. His fingers brushed the back of her neck and she s.h.i.+vered.

'You cold?' he asked.

Trix nodded. 'Put a blanket over me, I'll be fine.'

Martin had already found a sheet and lowered it over her legs. She wrapped herself up in it.

'You read my mind,' she said, slipping into a warm, comfortable sleep.

'So,' Fitz said, placing a lemonade and a bitter on the table and squeezing into the seat opposite the Doctor, 'what the doodah's diddleys happened back there?'

The Doctor listened to the Sugababes thudding out of the pub jukebox. 'It seems, Fitz, I was not alone in my disapprobation of Mackerel's Tomorrow Windows.'

'Bit drastic, though, wasn't it? Blowing it up?'

'It was, I believe, a warning.'

'Some warning! People could've been killed '

'That bomb could've exploded instantaneously. No, whoever it was, they gave people a chance to get away. They wanted people to be scared scared.'

'Well, they succeeded,' said Fitz. Outside on the Peter's Hill steps they had watched the remains of the Millennium Bridge crash into the Thames. The blast cloud had collapsed, coating everything, faces, clothes, the pavement, in pinkish-grey powder. The survivors had sat dumbstruck, unable to comprehend what they had just witnessed. 'Someone from outer s.p.a.ce too? '

'If there's one thing I dislike more than people interfering with planets, it's other people preventing people interfering with planets.'

27.'Muscling in on your territory?' Fitz twisted open a bag of crisps. The Falcon was beginning to fill up with other refugees from Tate Modern, brus.h.i.+ng the ash from their clothes. People were smiling to show their Dunkirk spirit.

'Amateurs doing the work of professionals.' The Doctor frowned at his lemonade. 'There is something going on here, Fitz. Something I don't like one bit.'

'How's your lemonade?'

'Flat,' said the Doctor. 'Let's go.'

Speckles of rain flitted between the street lamps turning the ash that covered the ground to sludge. Yellow tape circ.u.mscribed the streets leading to St Paul's. Police cars lined the streets, their blue lights pulsing.

The Doctor retrieved the gallery programme from his jacket and tapped the back cover. 'Charlton Mackerel. . . '

'What a name.' Fitz dug his hands into his pockets. 'Amazed anyone thought he was from Earth.'

As they walked through the cathedral gardens, Fitz spotted the rea.s.suring shape of a police box, waiting in the shadows. Some of the exhibition guests remained by the cathedral, giving statements to policemen in luminous yellow jackets. Radio intercoms crackled. A TV crew wrapped their camera in a bin-liner bag to protect it from the rain.

'The warning was not for us,' said the Doctor, 'It was for him.'

Fitz halted. 'Doctor. You do think Trix got out OK?'

The Doctor gazed upwards. The smoke from Tate Modern continued to snake across the starless sky. 'I don't know. I hope so.'

'Where do you think she is? The TARDIS?'

'Unlikely. I have the only key. No, she will, I daresay, turn up. If not, then. . . ' The Doctor trailed off.

They walked without speaking for some minutes, pa.s.sing a huddle of blankets in one of the shop doorways. Things have changed, thought Fitz. Returning to Earth still felt like coming home, but now with the wrong music, the wrong logos. Occasionally he would spot something he half-recognised, and the strangeness of the world would rush over him anew. Where did he belong? People define their lives by their jobs, their homes, their families. Fitz had none of those.

Something scuttled across the pavement. A cat? 'Doctor ' said Fitz.

The street remained empty. Cartons and blue-striped bags rolled in the gutter. Puddles s.h.i.+vered. And some horizontal lines flickered, ten or so yards away, at about knee-height.

Fitz blinked, thinking it was his eyes, but the lines became a wave of static, like tracking interference on a video tape. The line thickened, rolling up and 28 down. And a monochrome image s.h.i.+mmered within it. It was a man in a dark, long-tailed suit. Like a pallbearer.

The Doctor edged away, gesturing for Fitz to do the same.

'What is it?' said Fitz, swallowing.

'Absolutely no idea,' breathed the Doctor, his voice rising in fear. 'That's what frightens me.'

The shape moved towards them. It did not walk, it floated, as though superimposed upon reality, and as it floated it twisted in a series of jerks.

Sections of it degraded into blocks of squares.

It had no face. Fitz could make out the dark hole of a mouth, and the hollows where the eyes should be, but it had a grainy, blurred quality.

Terror trickled down Fitz's spine. Turn and run, he thought. Any second now, what I'm going to do is turn and run. Turn and run, turn and run.

'Fitz,' said the Doctor, and Fitz turned. The way was blocked by another of the creatures. Another ghoul dressed for a funeral. As it cast no shadow, it was difficult to gauge its distance, but it was growing closer.

'Now what?' Fitz glanced back at the first of the creatures. Its movement was graceful, dreamlike. Nightmarelike.

'h.e.l.lo, I'm the Doctor, I'm. . . nice.' Still backing away, the Doctor gave the creature a hopeful grin. In response it, hissed with static.

'I don't think they're friendly, Doctor.'

'No, nor do I. Oh well, live and hope, live and hope. . . '

A handbrake screech rang out followed by the slos.h.i.+ng of wheels. The Doctor grabbed Fitz's wrist, pulling him back on to the pavement. A Mercedes Sedan, flat and sleek, scrunched to a halt beside them.

Keeping his eyes on the approaching creature, the Doctor yanked open the pa.s.senger-seat door and leapt in. Fitz dived after, him, slamming the door.

The car lurched forward and Fitz tumbled back into his seat.

The creature was in front of them. The car accelerated towards it until Fitz could make out the serrated edges caused by its low resolution. Its eyes and jaw widened in amus.e.m.e.nt, or rage, or fear.

At the last moment, the driver heaved the car on to the opposite pavement, and, to Fitz's amazement, the creature narrowed to nothing. It was like a cardboard cut-out, impossibly thin. Only as they pa.s.sed it did the creature reappear, back-to-front. Then their car rounded a corner and it disappeared from view.

'You're taking us to Charlton Mackerel?' the Doctor said to the driver. 'You work for him, I presume.'

The man in the driver's seat had dark skin, scarred by acne. He nodded.

Fitz checked the rear window and shuddered. Three, no four of the creatures drifted along the road behind them.

29.'They're behind us,' Fitz reported.

'I know,' said the Doctor, without turning round.

'But. . . they're all flat.'

'No, Fitz. Two-dimensional.'

Fitz stared at the creatures. They became fuzzy, transparent and dissolved from sight. He was left watching empty tarmac rus.h.i.+ng away into the night.

'Why does your employer want us?' the Doctor asked the driver.

'Ask him yourself.' They swerved into a tunnel and dipped down a ramp into an underground garage. The wail of brakes echoed in the gloom as they halted outside a lift.

Fitz climbed out of the car and waited as the Doctor pressed the lift b.u.t.ton.

'Floor fifteen,' said their driver, rummaging through the glove compartment.

The Doctor said, 'Thanks for the lift. . . You're not coming with us?'

By way of an answer, the driver clunked a cartridge into the handle of a machine rifle. 'I have work.'

'Right. Yes,' said the Doctor. 'Good luck.' The lift doors clattered open, spreading an orange glow across the garage.

At the far end of the garage a mist snaked down the ramp. Out of the mist appeared three of the juddering black-and-white creatures. They hovered through the chamber as though suspended on wires. They crackled like untuned radios.

The Doctor jumped into the lift, and Fitz stabbed the 'fifteen' b.u.t.ton.

From within his car, the driver fired at the creatures. The echo of each shot clapped back from the darkness.

At last the lift doors shuttered and Fitz felt the floor press against his feet.

'Doctor, what's going on?'

'I have no idea.'

'Worth asking.'

'Yes, always worth asking, Fitz.' The Doctor attempted a smile as the lift halted and opened on to a spa.r.s.e, modern office. The reception desk was unmanned.

'Here,' said the Doctor, das.h.i.+ng to a plaque screwed on a wooden door.

Charlton Mackerel.

Charlton's office consisted of a large desk holding an iMac. A window dominated the far wall granting a panorama of the London night. Fitz could see Canary Wharf and Tower Bridge, both picked out in pools of light. He could make out the red and white rives of traffic and, in the distance, the hills and skysc.r.a.pers silhouetted against the blue sky.

'Great view, isn't it?' sighed Charlton Mackerel. 'I'll miss it, you know.

London. England. Earth. . . ' He walked forward from behind Fitz. 'Righty-ho.

Time we made our exit.'

30.'Our exit?' said Fitz. There was a rattle of gunfire and the c.h.i.n.k of shattering gla.s.s. Fitz heard boots running past as torchlight flashed from the corridor outside.

'Look.' Charlton pointed towards the window.