Doctor Who_ The Stealers Of Dreams Part 5

'Where do you get a beer round here, anyway?'

'Pub.'

'At this time of the morning?'

'Open all hours. Alcohol's good, in the right dosage. Numbs the brain, saves us thinking too hard, keeps us sane. Keeps things real. There's a decent place just round the corner.'

'OK,' said Jack. 'Lead on.'

As dawn had turned the sky red, Rose had crashed out in their room. She would catch up on a few hours' sleep, then go and find Domnic. With luck, the Doctor would be back before she left. If not... well, that was one more thing to worry about.

In the meantime, Jack was left to find one man in a city a world of twenty million, according to the Ethernet. He didn't fancy his chances. Unless he did something that Domnic had inadvertently suggested. Something risky.

This, then, was his mission. To tell stories. Ask questions. Draw attention. Make a name for himself.

And make Hal Gryden come to him.

An hour and a half later, Captain Jack was in his element, perched on a bar stool with a semicircle of rapt faces in front of him: tired nights.h.i.+ft workers and dispossessed unemployed, who'd been wallowing in their own misery before his arrival.

'So this poor guy walks into the refectory all dressed up like the Face of Boe, with the admiral standing right there. You should have seen him when he realised it wasn't a costume party at all. He didn't know where to put his... well, his whole body.'

He leaned back against the bar and took a swig from his bottle, revelling in his audience's appreciative laughter.

It hadn't been like this in the first bar. The customers there, all sitting in silence at their tables in the gloom, had just glowered at him. One couple had plugged their ears and started to sing loudly. Someone else had thrown a bottle at him and called him a 'fiction geek'. The second place he had been thrown out of by a surly bartender almost as soon as he had opened his mouth.

Not that he was short of hecklers here. 'You should go see a doctor, you should,' snapped a sharpfeatured old woman from the other end of the bar. 'And the rest of you oughtn't to be egging him on.'

'It's the truth, I swear,' said Jack.

'I believe him,' piped up another patron, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. 'I don't reckon there's anyone could make up stuff like this.'

'Yeah? What about that Hal Gryden?'

The old woman had found a supporter. 'If you're telling the truth,' he challenged Jack, brandis.h.i.+ng a gla.s.s, 'where's your s.h.i.+p? Why didn't we see it landing?'

'It's out in the jungle, and it didn't land. It materialised. Yeah, you heard me,' said Jack, raising his voice above the renewed gales of laughter. 'I came here in a time/s.p.a.ce capsule. From the outside, it looks like something called a police box. They had them on Earth in the twentieth century, but this one's bigger on the inside.'

The old woman slammed her gla.s.s down and spluttered, 'You expect anyone to believe that?'

'It's OK, ma'am,' Jack called after her as she made a show of storming out, 'you can listen. The police can't touch us because this isn't fiction. It's my life!'

'Prove that to the doctors!' she spat as a parting shot.

'Tell us about this capsule of yours,' someone requested.

'Oh, it's not mine,' said Jack. 'It belongs to this guy called... Well, I'm not sure you're ready for that one yet.' He affected a mournful look at his empty bottle, which had the desired effect. A cute blond builder type stepped up to buy him another. 'And one for my friend,' requested Jack cheerfully. He turned to the table in the corner with a thumbsup gesture, but it was empty. He frowned and surveyed the crowd, seeing the tramp only as he appeared at his elbow.

'Reckon it's time we left, Cap'n,' he muttered.

'You kidding me? I'm just warming up. And I got us another '

'There'll be other places,' hissed the tramp fiercely, 'but not if we hang around this one. The old bat she'll be on her vidphone to the police by now.'

Jack practically fell off his stool in his haste to stand. The old man was right. He'd have seen it himself if it hadn't been for the booze. He'd only meant to have one, just to get in the mood. Soft drinks only in the next pub, he swore.

'I've just been reminded,' he announced, 'of a pressing appointment. It's been cool speaking to you all, and if anyone comes looking for me apart from the police, I mean I'm staying at '

'Just tell them to look in the static,' the tramp interrupted hastily.

Jack gave the old man a protesting look as he was taken by the arm and led to the door, to the disappointed groans of his audience.

'What did you do that for?' he complained, blinking in the daylight.

'You want the police down on you?' asked the tramp.

'Who cares? Anyway, no one would have talked. They'd have nothing on me.'

'How much do you think they need?'

'And I'm meant to be getting attention. I want to be found.'

'By Hal Gryden,' the tramp reminded him, 'no one else. And he'll find you if he wants to. You ever seen him on the TV? He knows what goes on. He's got eyes and ears everywhere. He wants to find you, Cap'n he'll find you trust me on that one.'

It was early afternoon as they made their escape from Jack's fourth successful recital. They used the back door.

He had been feeling pretty pleased with himself. Already, his reputation was preceding him. He was being applauded on sight, recognised by his dress sense alone, and was finding more and more people eager to listen to him. In a world starved of stories, Jack supposed they spread all the more quickly.

And they kept on spreading. 'Tell us the one about the armoured sharks!' someone had shouted from the back of this latest, biggest crowd.

Even if he didn't find Gryden, he was doing some good. He was doing what the Doctor had wanted: introducing fiction to this world.

Not that his stories were fiction exactly. He had continually had to rea.s.sure people that they were were hearing only the truth, and indeed they were. Well... give or take the odd embellishment. You had to keep them interested, after all. hearing only the truth, and indeed they were. Well... give or take the odd embellishment. You had to keep them interested, after all.

Nevertheless, he was engaging their imaginations, expanding their horizons beyond their dull little planet. And in the process he was sticking it up an unjust authority... Life didn't get much better than this.

Jack was loving every second of his newfound fame. That was why, this time, he had stayed too long.

They were racing down a garbagestrewn alley, hemmed in by high walls from which the sounds of police sirens echoed until he had no idea which way they were coming from. The tramp was showing a surprising turn of speed, especially considering how much he'd drunk.

'You should leave me,' insisted Jack. 'No need for us both to get nicked.'

'Enough people have seen us together,' the tramp reasoned. 'I'm an accessory before and after the fiction. Anyway, I know these alleyways like the back of my hand. No way you're getting out of this one without me, Cap'n.'

Jack didn't argue as the tramp led him around a corner.

Into the path of a police bike.

It was charging towards them like an enraged rhinoceros, all armour plating. For an instant, the tramp was frozen in its harsh blue light, but Jack grabbed his hand and pulled him along. Towards the oncoming vehicle.

He had seen a gap in a row of rusted railings. He pushed the tramp through and scrambled after him, as the bike screeched past and came to a sudden, antigravitya.s.sisted halt. Its rider leaped from the saddle,an imposing figure in his black armour and faceconcealing helmet.

They were on a patch of wasteland, piled high with abandoned electronic goods. Jack seized a burnedout was.h.i.+ng machine on a set of castors and set it rolling up to the railings as the cop tried to squeeze his padded shoulders through after them. He recoiled as the machine hit. It would delay him for a moment.

Jack leaped over a clappedout robobutler and found cover behind a mound of a.s.sorted junk. The tramp took the long way round, and joined him wheezing and gasping for breath. He didn't pause, though, or complain. His eyes were alight with excitement. He was running on adrenaline. For now.

He wasn't the only one. 'We need somewhere to lie low,' said Jack. 'As soon as that cop calls in our location, they'll move in to surround us.'

The tramp didn't say anything. He took the lead as they threaded their way through more junk heaps on a seemingly random course.

And suddenly the cop was there, a good distance away but fortuitously in the right spot at just the right time for a clear line of sight. He snapped off four gunshots, and Jack yanked the tramp back out of the path of the fizzing blue energy bullets.

They plunged back into the junk heap maze, turned left, left, right, and then the tramp was scrambling to climb a rotten wooden fence twice his height. Jack gave him a boost before attacking the fence at a run. His hands found the top, and his companion helped to pull him up and over.

They dropped onto a muddy incline, the tramp losing his balance and slipping and sliding until Jack caught him. He had almost toppled headlong into a rusty red river, which wended its way sluggishly between weedchoked banks.

They ran on, roots tearing at their ankles, overlooked by the boardedup windows of old warehouses. They came to a spot where wooden crates had been dumped in the water, providing a series of precarious stepping points to the far side. A short way beyond that the river divided and they followed the right fork until finally they came to a halt beneath an iron bridge.

The tramp's spurt of energy had deserted him and he sank to the ground, his knees to his forehead, breath rattling in his lungs. 'They won't think to look for us down here,' he panted. 'Not for a while. Most of them don't know about the river. They built right over it, you see.' His words were almost swallowed by the thundering of traffic above their heads.

'That was a close one,' remarked Jack, when they had both got their breath back. 'From now on, we'll have to move on faster, never stay in one place too long.'

The tramp shook his head. 'You can't go out there again, Cap'n. Not dressed like that. The cops have your description. There'll be bikes out all over the sector.'

'I'm not gonna hide. I told you, I want to be found.'

'You have been. He knows where you are. He's always known.'

Jack frowned. 'What are you...'

The tramp climbed to his feet. 'You wanted to get attention? You've been doing that since you arrived on this world, you and your friends. I knew where you were staying. I was just waiting in that doorway for one of you to come by.'

Jack laughed. 'I get it. Eyes and ears everywhere. You're one of them, aren't you? You work for him. You're some sort of scout. You've been testing me.'

'Not quite true, Cap'n.' The tramp straightened his shoulders for the first time and drew himself up to his full height, meeting Jack's gaze with a gleam in his eyes and a smile on his lips. 'I am am him. I'm the man you've been looking for. I'm Hal Gryden.' him. I'm the man you've been looking for. I'm Hal Gryden.'

SIX.

The doctors will tell you that all all fiction is harmful, that the pleasure we find in good dreams is more than offset by the terror when those dreams go bad. I say that even the bad dreams are good for us. fiction is harmful, that the pleasure we find in good dreams is more than offset by the terror when those dreams go bad. I say that even the bad dreams are good for us.

Rose couldn't place the voice. She squirmed in her bed, defiantly keeping her eyes closed, hoping it would go away and leave her alone.

There's something alluring about monsters, about things that hide at the foot of your bed and go b.u.mp in the night. If there weren't, we wouldn't dream about them. We want want to experience that thrill, taste that fear. to experience that thrill, taste that fear.

She'd nodded off and left the telly on again. It was a wonder her mum hadn't burst in to unplug it, whingeing about the electric meter.

There's nothing wrong with a healthy scare. It sets our hearts racing, unleashes our adrenaline, lets us know we're alive.

She was surfacing from sleep, despite her efforts, remembering where she was.

For after all, what could be more exciting more stimulating than tackling those monsters head on?

She'd been lying awake again, the chorus of rushhour horns from the street below blasting in her ears. She'd turned on the TV to drown them out and found it tuned to the static between channels where Domnic had left it.

The white noise itself had been comforting: a bit harsh, maybe, but a constant regular sound to blot out all others. Rose's eyelids had sagged and she'd let the sound draw her into darkness.

In our dreams, we can do that. We can have that excitement, and yet be protected. Our dreams can't hurt us.

What time was it? How long had she slept? Was the Doctor back yet?

What was she listening to?

This has been an editorial on behalf of Static TV. I'm Hal Gryden. We're forced to cease broadcasting now, but we'll be back this afternoon with our play for today: Castle of the Braineating Zombies Castle of the Braineating Zombies. Look for us in the static.

Wide awake now, Rose sat bolt upright. She was just in time to catch a fleeting impression of a face on the TV screen before it was buried in a grey snowstorm. She leaped out of bed and went for the tuning controls, which Domnic had left exposed.

She scrolled through a dozen channels, finding the usual procession of newsreaders and narrated doc.u.mentaries.

She lingered on the live feed from a courtroom, where a woman was pet.i.tioning for divorce on the grounds that her husband had destroyed her confidence with a campaign of malicious lies: 'He specifically and repeatedly a.s.sured me that my b.u.m did not look big in that dress, and yet when I arrived at the restaurant ' 'He specifically and repeatedly a.s.sured me that my b.u.m did not look big in that dress, and yet when I arrived at the restaurant '

She turned off the telly and looked at the clock. She couldn't make head or tail of the six numbers on its face. She didn't know which way round to read them, or even how many hours there were in a day on this world. But a glance out of the window told her that the sun was standing high in the sky.

And still no Doctor. She pulled on her jacket and found her mobile in the pocket: the one he'd gimmicked so that it never needed recharging and showed a signal anywhere, any time. She thought there might be a text or a missed call from him. No dice, though. One day, she was gonna make him carry his own phone she knew he had one, when it suited him.

He'd find her. He always did. In the meantime, she should get on with it. Find Domnic. Rose and Jack had agreed he could be useful to them, if they could calm him down. He could be their local guide. Anyway, she wanted to make sure he was OK after last night's freakout.

She scribbled a quick message for the Doctor just in case and was headed for the door when she heard a noise behind her.

A footstep, where there had been n.o.body a second ago.

Rose spun around, catching her breath.

The room was empty.

She smiled to herself. She was glad the Doctor and Captain Jack hadn't seen her, jumping at shadows.

But just for a second there... Just for a second and her smile froze at the recollection she had been convinced, absolutely convinced, that she wasn't alone. That there had been someone no, something behind her.

And not just anything. A...